Eruhantalë
by Mirefinwe
Summary: Early in the Second Age, the family of Elros gather for a reunion. Slash elements.
1. Chapter 1

Dramatis Personae

Elros Tar-Minyatur - King of Númenor

Halmiel - his wife

Vardamir, Tindómiel, Manwendil, Atanalcar - their children

Amandil, Vardilmë - two of Vardamir's children

Ivanneth - Amandil's wife

Hiril - Manwendil's wife

Íriel - their daughter

Aglarin - illegitimate son of Atanalcar

Erilon - kinsman (descended from Bregolas' daughter Beleth) of Elros

Erelos - his son

Gilbor - Elros' steward

Ethuil - Tindómiel's maid

Elulin - one of Halmiel's maids

**.~.~.~.~.**

**Author's Notes:**

Tindómiel, Manwendil, Atanalcar and Vardilmë are not OCs, but are shown on a family tree in 'Unfinished Tales'. Both of Elros' younger sons are marked as having descendants, but Íriel and Aglarin are OCs, as are Halmiel, Hiril and Ivanneth, all of whom were created to fill obvious gaps in the tree.

Beleth is mentioned in 'The History of Middle-earth', where it is noted that Tar-Aldarion's wife Erendis was descended from her. However, Erilon and all of his family are OCs.

The story takes place in S.A. 349.


	2. Chapter 2

'Remember also your creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw nigh, when you will say, "I have no pleasure in them"; before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain; in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look through the windows are dimmed, and the doors on the street are shut; when the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the voice of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low; they are afraid also of what is high, and terrors are in the way; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along and desire fails; because man goes to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the streets; before the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity.'

Ecclesiastes 12:1-9

Seven years after the final catastrophe, the king's daughter woke up into the nagging knowledge that something horrific - what? - was bearing down upon her.

Of course, it was almost the Eruhantalë.

_Damn!_

Tindómiel sat up in bed, glaring rather defiantly at the over-familiar shapes of her bedchamber: the same room in which she had slept as a child almost three hundred years before. It is a regrettable fact that Tindómiel Elros' daughter did not have a due reverence for the Eruhantalë, that great festival at which the people of Númenor pay homage to Eru Ilúvatar and offer thanksgiving to him for the agricultural prosperity of the previous year.

On the contrary, she privately thought of it as 'that bloody time of year'. This was not because she did not love Eru, although, in truth, she rarely thought of him. It was because the month of the Eruhantalë was traditionally the time when the king's extended family gathered about him for that most fearful of occasions, a family reunion. Tindómiel loathed family reunions with the intensity of the unmarried daughter who has to organise the cursed things and keep undying feuds from breaking out among her relatives, or at least prevent actual bloodshed.

She got on badly with most of her closest relations. Of her three brothers, she felt a positive dislike for Manwendil and Atanalcar, the younger two. With Vardamir it was different; he was closest to her own age and had shared her childhood in a way that the others had not. Vardamir was a part of her. But Vardamir no longer attended family reunions.

There was a knock at the door. It was Tindómiel's maid, Ethuil. She kept a maid because her rank would not permit her to dispense with one, but she made few demands on Ethuil, whose main task was to wake her mistress up in time for breakfast (which was served at the eleventh hour of the morning); Tindómiel had inherited from her father both his habit of oversleeping and his intrinsic mistrust of dependants. She was perfectly capable of dressing herself. Ethuil was occasionally called upon to assist her in her task of running the royal household, but she had a lot of free time, which she spent flirting with Elros' valet (who was even more idle than herself).

Now Tindómiel turned her attention to bathing and otherwise readying herself for the day. Before going downstairs, she spent a moment peering into the large mirror that hung above her bed, as if to see what changes time had wrought in her since the last Eruhantalë.

She found that a few new lines had appeared on her forehead, while the grey streak in her brown hair had widened noticeably. On the whole, however, she wore her years lightly, this wiry slip of a woman in whose veins ran the blood of Idril and Lúthien as well as Tuor and Beren.

These affiliations were not reflected in her face. So far as looks went, she might have been her mother's child only. Her features were a sharper and less blooming version of the young Queen Halmiel's. She had rather pointed little white teeth, like those of some quick-moving rodent, and a belligerent chin. Her eyes were a nondescript, muddy grey-brown.

She turned away from the mirror with a sigh; not a sad sigh; a sigh of sheer frustration with the melting years and with herself.

.~.~.~.~.

The scene of this drama is the small royal villa that stands some one and a half miles away from the city of Armenelos. It was built by Elros, who used to retreat to it a few times a year, on such occasions as the Eruhantalë, to pretend to be an ordinary person. There was in Elros, beneath the obvious glitter and clash of his personality, a hidden strain of domestic sentimentality. Part of him was always seeking to recover the happiest years of his childhood, those spent on the Isle of Balar and later on Amon Ereb in the care of Maedhros. This was the explanation for his need to escape from time to time from his official palace in the city, where he received official visitors and addressed the Council of the Sceptre and did all the business of a king.

The villa, which is surrounded by extensive gardens, has eleven bedrooms. When the number of guests exceeded this, it was Tindómiel's duty to arrange who should share a room with whom. There are various other rooms, of which the breakfast-room, the dining-room, the parlour and the large library were most used by the family of Elros. The servants' quarters and kitchen, while most comfortable and well-equipped, are tucked away unobtrusively at the rear of the building.

Elros realised, of course, that a king must have servants, but he did not like to see them more often than necessary. The maids were always careful to have finished cleaning the house (with the obvious exception of the bedrooms) before he woke in the morning. When in Armenelos, he consented to be waited on at table, but at the villa, the servants had orders to bring in the dishes and then leave the family to serve themselves.

It was the breakfast-room that Tindómiel entered now. The others were already seated. The others: Elros; Manwendil, his wife Hiril and their eight-year-old daughter Íriel; and Erilon and Erelos. To outsiders, the most mystifying aspect of Elros' family life was the participation in it of Cousin Erilon. His distant kinship to the king - his mother had been descended in the sixth generation from Bregolas' daughter Beleth - did not seem to merit that he should have a place at the annual reunion; nevertheless, there he was every year.

Perhaps the explanation was to be found in the fact that [there was a long-standing connection between his family and Elros' Sindarin great-grandfather Galathil, dating back to the aftermath of the Third Kinslaying, when Galathil had brought up Erilon's great-grandmother after the death of her parents. This orphan girl had been the last representative of an ancient Bëorian family who claimed to have some Avarin blood. No-one could consider Erilon and doubt this claim. For one thing, though only sixty-two years younger than Elros, he was not seen to age as did other mortals, even in Númenor. There was only one streak of grey in the waves of his raven hair; his fine-boned face was utterly unlined. Neither he nor his son Erelos had ever grown a beard.

More to the point, Erilon was stunningly beautiful, beautiful in the way that a woman is beautiful, beautiful as few women are. No, the perfection of his features was beyond gender. No-one had ever looked into his great dark liquid eyes and accused him of effeminacy in their heart.

Erelos, twenty-four years older than Vardamir, was an amateur historian and philologist, with a special interest in the language and culture of the Sindar, and had for some years been Vardamir and Tindómiel's tutor when Manwendil was small. In no way did he resemble his ebony-and-ivory sire in appearance. Like his late mother, Aiwerin of the People of Hador, he was blond and blue-eyed.

Manwendil was a dull person. In a way, he had been marked out as a nonentity at birth, for there had always been in the family a vague unarticulated sense that Vardamir and Tindómiel were the 'real children'; the younger two were afterthoughts. Atanalcar had reacted to this by becoming somebody that no-one could ever forget, even if they wanted to. Manwendil had never had the energy.

If he had ever had an overriding urge, it was not to be like his father. Thus, he lived a life of rigid conventionality and respectability in his mansion on the outskirts of Armenelos. His appearance was not unpleasing, but so unexceptional that few cared to remember it in detail. His most notable feature was his straight light brown hair.

Elros - but there is no need to describe Elros. His image is to be seen in every house in Númenor.

"Is it today that Atanalcar's coming?" Erelos asked the latecomer as she pulled out a chair. (He wanted to be distracted from the pathetically hungry expression with which Hiril was regarding him across the table.)

"Yes. This afternoon, probably. And then our happy family circle will be complete!" Tindómiel added with sarcasm.

No-one felt much inclined to talk during the meal, apart from Elros and Íriel, who kept up a stream of playful prattle. He loved her, this rapid, incorrigible compound of bouncing dark curls and eager eyes, as he loved none of the children of his own body. He said it was like calling to like.

Tindómiel had just finished eating when the steward, Gilbor, an old accomplice of hers, came in and stood by her chair.

"My lady," he said quietly, "I have some news of moment."

"Yes?"

Tindómiel imagined that he wanted her advice on some housekeeping matter.

"Prince Vardamir has come. He is waiting to be shown in."

"Oh!"

The words were like a blow to her stomach. She glanced instinctively at Elros, but he, laughing with his granddaughter, had obviously not heard.

"What are your orders?" Gilbor murmured.

"Show him in, of course! What else? And you can stop whispering. They'll all have to be told."

The steward, who was familiar with her temperament, departed silently. She looked into the ring of startled eyes whose attention had been attracted by the sharpness of her tone and told them. Their reactions were varied. Íriel, who could not remember Vardamir, was excited and curious; Hiril was indifferent; Manwendil annoyed; Erilon flinched and looked frantically around the table. Erelos took his hand and held it. But Elros seemed completely unmoved.

Before anyone could say anything, Vardamir himself was upon them. The room became suddenly very still and quiet: even little Íriel's eyes were fixed on the newcomer. Her first impression was that he was very like her grandfather, only not so handsome and charming. He also looked many years older than Elros. There was a dusting of white hair at his temples that she would not have seen seven years earlier.

And all the silence in the room was centred between his eyes and Elros'.

Tindómiel leapt to her feet.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded.

Vardamir turned his attention to her, and the dreadful tension was broken.

"You did invite me," he pointed out mildly.

"Yes, but you _know _I didn't expect you to _come_! And now, I suppose you expect to be fed!"

"We are weary from the journey, it's true."

Tindómiel had noticed, of course, that her brother was not alone, but the power of his presence had hitherto prevented her from looking at his companions, who huddled in the doorway in an embarrassed way. Two were familiar faces: Vardamir's elder children, Amandil and Vardilmë. The other was a woman whom she had never seen before, but whose identity she readily guessed.

"Where are Aulendil and Nolondil?"

"They did not choose to come."

This was intelligible. Vardamir's younger sons were both married and lived away from home, unlike the eldest, although Tindómiel knew that he too had married shortly before the dissolution of the ties between his father and grandfather. Presumably the strange woman was his bride. This supposition was confirmed when Amandil stepped forward, leading her with him, and said to the gathering in general,

"I would like to introduce my wife, Ivanneth!"

She was young, flaxen-haired, radiantly happy in a green dress embroidered with golden bouquets. Its folds draped admirably the pregnant hump of her stomach.

"Well, hello, brother," Manwendil said to Vardamir while everyone welcomed and congratulated her.

Vardamir returned the greeting, frowning slightly, as if seeking to recall who this man was.

Íriel bounced up.

"How do you do, Uncle Vardamir?"

"This is Íriel, our daughter," Hiril murmured.

Vardamir nodded briefly to them, then turned to Elros.

"Where is my mother?"

"Didn't you know? She lives at the palace all the time now. Don't worry, I have not killed her yet!"

Tindómiel had ordered Gilbor to have some food sent in for the newcomers. As he left the room, she felt a hand on her arm. It was Vardilmë.

Vardilmë was not a beautiful woman, especially not now in her middle-age. Her waist was not slender and had thickened perceptibly in the last seven years. Her best feature was her deep even grey eyes, inherited from Elros and Vardamir. She owed her light yellow hair to her Hadorian maternal grandmother.

In character, she was distinguished by a naïve affection for her entire extended family and a dog-like devotion to Tindómiel in particular that had made the isolation imposed by her beloved father almost unbearably painful. No-one was more glad than Vardilmë of this reunion, if that was what it was.

.~.~.~.~.

When Vardamir went into his bedroom before the evening meal, he found Erelos sitting on the bed, wearing a desperate look of assumed determination: the look of a naturally indeterminate man who has settled on a course of action and will follow it through in spite of himself.

They looked at each other.

"Now, don't say anything," Erelos said in a rush. "I won't keep you long."

"No," his cousin agreed. "Will you leave now, please?"

"In a minute. I just want to give you something. This," he added, holding out a slim book bound in green leather.

"It is yours?"

"Yes. My latest. I didn't think you would have read it-"

"I have not."

"Yes. Well. Here it is! Won't you take it?"

Vardamir showed no sign of doing so.

"So! I'll leave it here, then. Goodbye."

When he had gone, Vardamir picked up the book - an extended essay on the theme of cultural transmission between Doriath and the Havens of Círdan during the Siege of Angband - and looked at it. As he did not believe in burning books, he decided that the best thing would be to put it in the library downstairs, but unfortunately there was not time to do so before the meal. He had to leave it on the window-sill, where Erelos had deposited it, until he should have a better opportunity.

When he entered the dining-room, Erilon, who was leaning gracefully against the end of the mantelpiece, watching the tumults of the fire, came over to meet him.

"I'm glad to see you again," he began, looking at his younger cousin with anxious eyes. "How are you?"

At the sound of his voice, Vardamir stiffened with affront, then, without acknowledging the other's presence in any way, sat down at the table and struck up a conversation about trivialities with Hiril.

.~.~.~.~.

The friendship between Erelos and Vardamir was one of long standing. Vardamir, with his natural intelligence and love of study, had been Erelos' favourite pupil during the years when he had been tutor to him and Tindómiel. Later he had spent long, happy summer months at Erilon's estate in the Andustar, which he had come to love because life there proceeded at a different pace and in a different key to life in Armenelos. It was when staying there that he met his future wife, Ernis. This story deserves to be told in full.

At seventeen serious and studious, he was annoyed when Erelos' sister Nimfileg decided to give a house party, viewing it as nothing but a noisy interruption from which he must escape in the pages of his books. This plan was working beautifully when the hostess herself sought him out in his room on the first evening. He must join the festivities. She would hear no excuses. There was someone whom he had to meet!

The entire ground floor of the house was brilliantly illuminated by hundreds of candles. Erilon was not there, but Aiwerin, who was sometimes just a little nostalgic for the glory days of her youth, was wandering happily among her daughter's friends. She was still the most beautiful woman present, although beginning to run to fat.

Nimfileg led Vardamir to a large table in a room full of women. There was a great deal of noisy talk and laughter going on - everything that Vardamir hated, in fact -, and at the beating heart of it all was a woman - a woman -

He would maintain till the end of his days that she was beautiful; but he was wrong. It was not beauty that shone and flashed around her face like sheet lightning. It was two things: great intelligence and vivid sensuality. Both qualities stirred and mingled in the depths of her eyes, which were the uneasy grey of the sea in winter. Vardamir fell into them and was drowned.

The eyes were set in a long and mobile face, and that was framed by a heavy mass of very dark brown hair. Her olive complexion was the great bane of her life, to which, perhaps, many of the misfortunes that she later suffered and caused may be attributed.

She had been born in Armenelos, two years before Vardamir, to simple, humble parents. Her Bëorian father was deeply proud of his sweet, fair-skinned, golden-haired Hadorian wife. Alas, her ancestry in the doomed land of Dor-lómin held an unsavoury secret that was revealed to the world in her one child, who got her colouring from the unknown Easterling who must have coupled - under what circumstances of brutality or collaboration? - with one of her female forebears.

It is hardly surprising if Ernis' parents' genuine love for her was sometimes mingled with an unconscious resentment. The situation was made worse by the fact that they were completely unable to cope with her precocious intelligence; but perhaps all this is beside the point. Perhaps the reasons for her miserable career were so deeply embedded in her character that not even the most loving upbringing could have saved her.

There are people who are so self-confident that only the actions of others can make them unhappy. Elros was one of these, or nearly so. There are people who ruin their own happiness by making mistakes. Hiril was one such. And there are people who seem unable to achieve anything but unhappiness, born to suffer and to bring bad luck, ill-fated from the cradle to the grave. Ernis belonged to this category.

She was incapable of enjoying a happy married life; a self-professed anarchist who loved and loved only the King's Heir of Númenor; a lover who married the wrong man out of spite towards her beloved; a mother who despised her children.

But at Nimfileg's party, when all of this was hidden in the future, that brilliant sorrowless being pushed Vardamir towards her with these words:

"Here he is, my dear; our heir to the throne. Vardamir, Ernis was just telling us how she thinks the monarchy ought to be abolished!"

Ernis, completely unabashed, laughed: a great free merry laugh.

"I was making a political point," she told him later. "It doesn't mean I have anything against you personally."

What long conversations they had that summer, on that subject and many others! What walks, what rides! Ernis extended her stay to two months, so that she could help with the harvest on Erilon's smallholding, but in Vardamir's memory the summer seemed to stretch out into years of brilliant sunshine and love. If he had not fallen in love at first sight, he was certainly in that state by the time she returned to Armenelos, whither he followed a few days later.

Now he had the great pleasure of introducing Ernis to Halmiel and the tribulation of enduring Elros' crude remarks on the occasion. Fortunately, they all loved each other. He should probably have proposed now, and would have done, if he had not been so cripplingly shy. He could hold his own against her in an argument on almost any impersonal subject, but he _could not _compliment her on her appearance, let alone confess his admiration for her. His tongue would freeze in his mouth whenever he tried.

Time went on. After a year, Vardamir and Ernis were inseparable friends, but not yet more. He had made up his mind not to force his attentions upon her. She should have the freedom to choose for herself whether or not she wanted them to court.

At the end of the second year, she began to be a little short-tempered with him. He was distressed. Both Elros and Tindómiel explained to him in no uncertain terms what the matter was, but he could not believe that his Ernis would express such straightforward emotions in such an oblique manner. Why would she, who believed so passionately in the rights of women, wait for him to make the first move?

After four years of knowing Vardamir, Ernis went to stay with Nimfileg again. When she came back, three months later, she was engaged to another man. Vardamir, although indescribably wounded and broken, decided not to upset her by attempting to persuade her to change her mind before the wedding.

During the years of anguish that followed, he derived much comfort from his friendship with Erelos. Not that they ever discussed affairs of the heart; if Vardamir ever needed to confide in someone, there was always Tindómiel; his conversations with Erelos never strayed far away from the world of scholarship. This did not mean that their mutual understanding was not true and deep and strong.

He tried to shut his ears to the rumours of Ernis' unhappy, childless marriage; it seemed to him that the only way to survive was to think of her as little as possible. He had not bargained with the weak heart that removed her husband after a century of marriage. He went to her immediately. The season for shyness and regard for propriety was gone: now was the time to snatch at the chance of happiness with both hands.

They were married within three months of her husband's death.

.~.~.~.~.

Atanalcar arrived shortly after the evening meal, when the company were gathered together in the parlour. In the interests of keeping the peace, they had quietly divided into two bodies, one - incorporating Tindómiel, Erilon, Erelos and Íriel - centred on Elros, the other - consisting of Amandil, Ivanneth, Vardilmë, Manwendil and Hiril - revolving around Vardamir. When Gilbor showed Atanalcar in, the two groups had made camp one on either side of the fire and were conversing on neutral subjects among themselves.

Atanalcar lived in the Hyarnustar, where he owned a large villa and extensive vineyards. He also possessed a muscular physique - far more so than Elros and Vardamir, to whose physical type he belonged in other respects - and a rather terrifying reputation as an amateur boxer. His father and sister made no secret of the fact that they had never liked him, and even Halmiel seemed to find him a somewhat puzzling object at times.

He never walked anywhere; he was a natural strider. Now he strode into the library, and at his heels crept something like a small, timid extension of his shadow.

"Who on earth is this child?" Tindómiel said, rising to her feet. Even as she spoke, a premonition chilled her heart.

"Ah, dear sister, how I love your charming habit of omitting the formality of greeting!"

"Please answer my question."

She had no intention of allowing him to annoy her.

"This, for my sins," Atanalcar declared, "is my son, Aglarin."

Vardilmë let out a little cry of shock.

"And what, pray," Tindómiel said, "is Aglarin doing here?"

"Why, hoping to be received into the bosom of the family!"

Tindómiel darted a plaintive look at her father, who seemed to be trying to conceal a smile.

"I think we are all waiting to hear you explain yourself," he suggested, trying not to look at poor Vardilmë, whose expression he found inordinately amusing.

"Oh well," Atanalcar smiled, "since you ask, _Adar_ - not that _you_ should object... This boy's mother died many years ago. Until this summer, he was brought up by his maternal grandmother, who is unfortunately, as of this summer, also no more. Since he has no other relatives on that side of the family, I felt obliged to take him into my household."

"And why did you not inform us of this before?" Tindómiel complained.

"Ah, you know my love of making an entrance!"

At this point the child Aglarin, shyly, obviously fearing that he was making an imposition, stepped forward and held out his hands to the fire. The family saw his face for the first time. It was small and round, with prominent cheekbones. His black glossy hair clung closely to the contours of his head. Vardilmë thought he looked sweet.

**.~.~.~.~.**

**Author's Notes:**

My readers, if I have any, will probably be surprised that my Elros was fostered by Maedhros rather than Maglor. In fact, there is good evidence for this version of events. The 'Sketch of the Mythology' that Tolkien wrote in 1926 casts the elder brother as the hero of this episode, as did the 1930 work the 'Quenta' as first written. Maglor took over the role in a change to the second version of this part of the 'Quenta', and Christopher Tolkien used the revised text when compiling the published 'Silmarillion'. However, Tolkien appears to have changed his mind again, as he reverted to the original story in a work named 'The Tale of Years' that was composed in 1951 or 1952.

According to 'The History of Middle-earth', after the Third Kinslaying the sons of Fëanor spent two years living in hiding 'about Amon Ereb' before 'Morgoth sent against them' and they had to flee to the Isle of Balar. We do not know whether they stayed there throughout the War of Wrath, but it is assumed for the purposes of this story that they returned to Amon Ereb.

The three great festivals of Númenor, the Erukyermë, Erulaitalë and Eruhantalë (celebrated respectively at the beginning of spring, midsummer and the end of autumn), are described in 'Unfinished Tales', which also contains much information on the geography of Númenor. It was apparently shaped like a starfish, the Andustar being the western arm and the Hyarnustar the south-western one.

Galathil, Nimloth's father, is mentioned in 'Unfinished Tales' as well.

_Adar_=Father (Sindarin)


	3. Chapter 3

'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.'

John 12:24

"Father," Hiril said to Elros the next morning, "I must apologise."

"Oh," Tindómiel cried, "is your father here? I hadn't noticed him."

Hiril blushed violently.

Elros asked her what she wanted to apologise for.

"Oh - only that Íriel was late for breakfast again."

"That doesn't matter, my dear. I was late for breakfast myself. I always am. That is why breakfast is served so late in this house."

The meal in question being over, Erelos had decided to spend an hour or two in the library, which was large and well-stocked, mainly by Vardamir in his youth. Several comfortable chairs were scattered invitingly among the bookshelves, but he had hardly settled himself in one of these when Elros and Tindómiel came in through the tall window on the garden that was one of the most distinctive features of the room. Hiril entered at almost the same moment. She had been hoping to find Erelos on his own, but since Elros was there too she felt she ought to make an excuse for the regrettable behaviour of her offspring.

"Don't you think it would be better for your health if you were to rise earlier?" Erelos asked Elros.

His tone, as always, was one of perfect civility. There was nothing particularly outrageous about his words; only the scornful look in his vividly blue eyes bore witness to the fixed hostility that he bore towards his cousin.

Elros met his gaze and was momentarily transported by the colour of those eyes to another place and another time. The time was the February of the thirty-third year of the Second Age; the place was the eastward haven of Romenna. He was standing on a wall - this added a pleasing element of spontaneity to the impression that he wished to create -, making a speech of welcome for a shipload of new arrivals from the Middle-earth. He considered them rather unprepossessing specimens, on the whole. Most of the women were pale from the long voyage and looked as if they could do with a change of clothes and a bath.

But as he ran his gaze over the crowd - looking deeply, deeply into the eyes of every one -, what should he come across but a pair that really were the colour of sky?

And the day became joyful, and the dull sky was lightened, and the ragged refugees were beautiful in his eyes: all because the eyes were smiling at him. The red lips were smiling too, and the wispy golden hair was flying around in a little breeze that had sprung up out of nowhere. Elros rose to unprecedented heights of eloquence, even for him.

When the speech was over, his attendants wanted to drag him off to the monstrous half-built palace, but he waved their importunities away and walked over to where she was still standing, waiting. She had been in the third row of his hearers, but the crowd was melting away now. She was even more enticing at close quarters.

"Lady," he said, "I am glad to see you and to welcome you to my kingdom."

"My lord does me too much honour."

"Such beauty can never be honoured enough. Would that I had enough time to do justice to the effect that your loveliness has on me! But my guards over there will not give me more than a few minutes' freedom. But come and dine with me."

He scarcely heeded her modest reply, so taken was he with the bell-like sound of her voice. Now he was ripped away from his daydream by Tindómiel's not quite so melodious tones.

"Really, cousin!" she exclaimed. "As if anything could damage his perfect constitution!"

It seemed suddenly unbearably hard to Elros that Erilon and Aiwerin's son should feel hatred for him.

Murmuring, "I think I'll go for a ride," he stepped through the window and made for the stables. A quarter of an hour later, he was shown into one of the rooms of Queen Halmiel's south-facing suite in the palace at Armenelos.

_Ah, Halmiel, Halmiel-_

She looked up at him, when he came in, with those enormous brown eyes that were still the same: still overflowing, at least in his sight, with wisdom and humour and strength. It was sunny in the room. He sat beside her on the window seat and put one arm lightly around her shoulders, feeling her terrible fragility.

It was a strange, strange sight that would have confronted the eyes if one, walking in the rose garden outside, had glanced in to see them, framed by the window, bright as an illuminated manuscript: the beautiful young man, no more than eighteen from his looks, caressing the old old withered woman.

"How are you, my dearest?" he whispered.

"Oh, well enough..."

Her voice was not as strong as it had been in her youth, but it had never deteriorated into a crone's cackle. The light was almost like summer light; if he could do nothing but look into her eyes and listen to her voice - _Oh, Halmiel _- but, by imperceptible stages, the years had turned her brown and boyishly short curls to white. Her once peach-soft skin had become an infinitely fine network of crinkles.

"I have a piece of news for you, sweetheart. Atanalcar has turned up for the Eruhantalë with a natural son!"

She was confused; her bony hands clung to his cloak for security, like a child's.

_Halmiel, my darling girl-_

"Natural son? What? I don't understand."

"No, none of us knew until last night. The boy's name is Aglarin. He's ten, apparently, though I must say he looks more like seven. Come to dinner and meet him."

"Where to dinner?"

"To our villa, of course."

A look of fear crossed her face.

"No, oh no! I don't want to."

He knew better than to try to reason with her at such moments. Instead, he held her to him in silence for a few minutes. Suddenly she stirred.

"Elros, is it the Eruhantalë?"

"Yes, my love."

She nodded, satisfied: "I thought so. But sometimes I get things wrong." Her hair smelt of despair and forgetfulness.

_Halmiel-_

.~.~.~.~.

Halmiel's paternal grandfather, although not of any high lineage, had led the Folk of Haleth during the latter part of the War of Wrath, which secured his son Halmion a place in the Council of the Sceptre that was formed to advise Elros soon after the first ships reached Númenor. This grim-faced little man was to become somewhat notorious for his rigid separation of his public and private lives. It was known that he kept a wife and daughter in the Andustar, but he never spoke of them to his fellow-Councillors, and they never came to Armenelos.

"Really," Elros said once to Erilon, "you'd think he wanted to keep the girl away from me!"

His cousin's lips moved in a faint smile: "I can't imagine why any father would wish to do that..."

It came to pass that in the summer of the fifty-seventh year of the Second Age Elros went on a royal progress that brought him to a house some twenty miles from Halmion's: a large house that dominated a small town, most of whose patriarchs had served under Elros' host in the war.

The high point of his stay there was a great feast to which all the local residents of note were invited. Elros, who was consumed with curiosity about the mysterious daughter, added to Halmion's invitation a note in his own hand, to the effect that he expected him to bring his family with him. The next day, just as he was setting out on a hunting expedition with his host, the messenger who had carried the invitation brought back a disappointing answer: Halmion's daughter had caught a bad fever. Her life was not thought to be in danger, but, owing to the risk of contagion, her parents would not be able to attend the feast.

He was not allowed to brood over this frustration for long, as his host was eager to get going. A great enthusiast for the chase, he was eager to share its delights with his royal guest in the great forest that surrounded his little kingdom. It was no doubt the hunting prospects that had attracted him to the region in the beginning.

Now Elros' attitude towards hunting had been mixed ever since his foster-father had introduced him to it when he was a child. On the one hand, he adored the excitement, the physical exercise, the intimate contact with nature and with one's companions and one's horse with which he associated the sport. On the other hand, he hated the killing.

On this occasion he was not really disposed to hunt, but had only agreed to please his host. After an hour he was bored stiff. When he saw the opportunity, he instantly slipped away from his companions and rode in the opposite direction to that from which he heard his name being called.

He did not expect to get lost, confident as he was then of his eternal youth and charm, beauty and power and good fortune. He casually expected to stumble on a way out of the forest before very long. He was wrong. By evening, tired and suffering for want of food and drink, he was cursing his own stupidity and wondering anxiously if it was really true that there were no wolves in Númenor. None had ever been seen, but how could one be sure... ?

Eärendil was blossoming in the velvet sky when he unexpectedly found himself at the edge of the forest, looking over a broad plain. On the edge of vision, he could see what seemed to be the lights of a house. He rode towards them. Reaching them and establishing that they did indeed belong to a house, he hammered on the door, shouting out his name when the occupants showed no signs of answering him. Finally, cautiously, the door was opened. Grouped on the other side was what appeared to be the entire household; no doubt this mysterious nocturnal intrusion had struck them as both shocking and sinister.

In the centre of this curious tableau, looking ready to defend his family with his heart's blood, stood Halmion.

Exhausted as he was, Elros burst out laughing.

"My lord," Halmion stuttered, "you must excuse us - we did not expect this honour-"

His expression suggested that he would have preferred the visitor to be a bandit, after all.

"So this really is the King, Father?"

Elros turned to look at the speaker, who was exactly the sort of mousey brown-haired little thing that he had expected (much as he might have hoped to be surprised). He had never been particularly attracted to women of the Third House. This one was a typical specimen, though not so plain as most and more slender than many.

"How's the fever?" he inquired solicitously.

"Fever?" she echoed, evidently bewildered.

"It was less serious than we apprehended," Halmion snapped. "Her recovery was nothing short of miraculous, was it not, Halmiel?"

Elros noticed and admired the way in which this speech wiped every trace of puzzlement off the girl's face. As she nodded in agreement, murmuring a few words of gratitude for her deliverance, no-one would have imagined that she had not risen from a sickbed hours before. Whatever her other shortcomings might be, at least she could think on her feet.

He had no time to study her in more detail that night; after gobbling some food, he was good only to fall into bed.

In the morning, preparing, with Halmion as a guide, to ride back to his host, he noticed that the man's dwelling was simply a scaled-up version of his wooden house in Brethil. It looked oddly forlorn, stranded in the Númenórean plain, with no trees to shelter it or others of its own kind to make it feel at home. Elros thought of the blue-eyed Aiwerin, who would have hated it: she loathed anything that smacked of sentimental nostalgia for the past.

Before parting with the man, he reminded him to come to the feast (which was to be held the next day) and _bring his wife and daughter_. Halmion, scowling ferociously, gave his word to do both.

Elros made sure he sat next to Halmiel at the feast, purely for the sake of exasperating her poor father. Expecting to be bored by her conversation, he tried to divert himself by teasing her, only to discover that she was to all practical purposes unteasable.

He tried to make her blush by extravagantly complimenting her appearance, sure of offending her maidenly reticence; she turned the tables on him with quietly witty retorts to his more ridiculous allegations.

He made another attack on the maidenly reticence with crude jokes; Halmion, sitting on the other side of the table, frowned at these; Halmiel merely laughed. He tried to fool her with tall stories; she shook her head at him and smiled secretly.

After this defeat, the conversation strayed down various byways. Halmiel's observations on politics, history and other topics showed wit, great native intelligence and a level of general knowledge that Elros would never have expected from a young girl brought up in such seclusion. He was impressed: intelligence, in his estimation, was almost as important as beauty.

Not that Halmiel's appearance was without a certain charm. It was, he found, unexpectedly pleasant to gaze into her very brown, very listening eyes. In short, when it was time to go to bed, not only was he grieved by the breaking up of their _tête-à-tête_; he wondered how he could ever have found her unattractive.

The conversation was continued at breakfast in the morning, but, all too soon, the guests were preparing to depart. Elros was leaving the area himself on the next day; there was no possibility of seeing her again before that. All he could do was extract a promise from Halmion to bring his daughter to Armenelos for the New Year celebrations. He agreed, no doubt realising that his cover had been fatally blown and there was no longer any possibility of keeping this notorious womaniser away from his beloved only daughter.

The next five months passed very slowly for Elros. Haunted by the memory of glistening brown eyes and a softly malicious laugh, he could not seem to think in the same way as before about other women - or men; they were true, those rumours. The unfailing sense of what was good for him that had travelled with him and guided him from birth told him what gold Halmiel was and how much he needed her. It must have been in about October when he began to torment himself with doubts as to whether she would have him.

It may be noted here that, while Elros made the Eruhantalë the occasion for a week or so of privacy with his family, he celebrated the New Year in Armenelos as a public festival. The palace was always full of guests, including, on this occasion, his great-grandfather Galathil from Tol Eressëa as well as Halmiel and her parents.

Of course it was heaven to see her again. It was also hell. They talked for hours, but always in the company of her mother, who - evidently acting on Halmion's instructions, as she was far too dull to have thought of the strategy herself - followed her like a shadow. On the last day of Galathil's stay, Elros gave a great feast in his honour. It was a very splendid occasion, magnificent enough to be recorded in several chronicles of the times; but Elros had no eyes and no thought for anything but one slender, brown-eyed figure.

They danced together. Holding her in his arms was almost too much for him. He was overwhelmed with desire, and he dared to hope from the rigidness of her body against his that she felt the same.

Of course he could not sleep that night. Instead, he went out into the deserted streets, challenging the bitingly cold air to cool his ardour. Halmiel's room was on the first floor of the palace. Looking up at her window, he saw a faint light coming from inside. A mad idea came to him. There was a gravel walk in the palace garden; he gathered up a large double handful of the tiny stones, in case the initial fusillade failed to catch her attention, and returned to her window.

At the first tiny patter, she opened the window and looked out. He called something up to her. She said nothing, but made a beckoning motion.

He woke no-one as he tiptoed through the palace; it would have been impossible for any to wake, for this was an enchanted hour. When he entered her room, she was sitting on the bed, dressed only in her shift. The light of a single candle made the room into a firelit cave.

"_Halmiel-" _he said.

And she said, _"Yes."_

They did not sleep at all that night. Afterwards, Elros could never remember how many times they had made love; he thought it was eight, which was, even for him, an exceptional performance. In between times, they talked. He had not talked to anyone so freely since the death of Maedhros. He told her about that, of course, and about everything that had gone before, including what he could remember of his first three years of life. Elwing and Elrond and always the brilliant light of the Silmaril, illuminating all his early memories.

He explained to her how he had never seen Eärendil, who had sailed out of his life when he was three months old. He told her how he could not remember Elwing's face: only the touch of her hand and the deep music of her voice, which could turn so suddenly and terrifyingly to anger.

He told her of the years spent on Amon Ereb, of his almost religious adoration of his foster-father. What did he remember of those years? He would tell her: he remembered understanding and kindness and a tenderness that few mothers could equal. He remembered love. And if anyone dared to suggest in his presence -

Here Elros became somewhat excitable and showed signs of raising his voice and sitting up in bed. Halmiel soothed him with kisses, pointing out that she had suggested nothing.

So he passed on to the giddy years of his youth in the topsy-turvy years of the War of Wrath, when he had been the toast of fashionable society and the delight of all the girls. He had made himself and his youth and beauty and wit into the symbol of an era. He told her about the nut-brown boy, Glasdir, a friend from childhood, with whom he had first discovered that other form of love. Oh, the beauty of that vanished spring! They were seventeen.

Poor Glasdir, dead in battle at twenty-five! Had Elros been in love with him? No. Why, then, did he grieve so terribly for his loss?

"I mourned him as a friend," he said, heaving himself up on one elbow and looking down at her. "It was as if I could love him as a friend and at the same time enjoy doing _that _with him. Keeping the two things separate. I don't know if you can understand-"

"I can."

"You are all-understanding and all-merciful."

"Go on with your story."

He went on to tell terrible things, passing from the horror of his first battle to the dreadful catastrophe that had finally parted him from Maedhros. The thought of that loss, that ever-bleeding wound, could still move him to tears; he wept now, in her arms, and she comforted him silently.

He told her about the choice: the great dilemma that had been, for him, no dilemma at all. He would probably have made the same decision even if Maedhros had not thrown himself into that fiery abyss which still haunted Elros' nightmares. What was eternal life, if it meant forsaking debauchery?

He told her how, on the ship, he had reminded himself to tell Elrond of some amusing little incident - and then - oh! It was like something his foster-father had once told him of the time when he was recovering from the loss of his right hand: how he was always trying to pick things up with the missing appendage.

Elros told Halmiel about those insane first years in Númenor, when he had been faced with the task of creating a nation from disparate groups of refugees: a task by no means completed on that winter's night. He did not go into detail on the intractable conflicts that continued to arise frequently between himself and his councillors, including her father, on the subjects of legislation and land ownership, because he found the relevant details extremely boring - although these skirmishes were not of course completely without exhilaration for a nature constituted like his.

He did explain how he had early decided that his most advantageous course would be to be seen always to embrace the cause of the common people. This was not a completely cynical decision, nor had he ever been willing to gain popularity by sacrificing his fundamental principles; for example, he had always vigorously opposed any suggestion that the death penalty should be introduced in Númenor, although many citizens of all ranks disagreed with him. But he did not conceal from Halmiel how mercilessly he had used his considerable charisma to seize power and hold on to it.

He told her about Erilon and about Aiwerin.

"Thank you," she said to him when he had finished his tale. The grey light of dawn revealed her face as a dim oval.

"I must tell you just one thing more, my darling."

"What is that?"

"I have never felt for any living being what I feel now for you."

"Then that makes two of us."

"Oh, Halmiel-"

"Ssshh, dear. I feel rather tired. I think I could go to sleep now."

"But what shall I do?"

"I suggest you go back to your own bed."

But outside her room he met Halmion, who had left his own chamber, which was at the end of the corridor, to answer a call of nature. Elros did not try to fabricate an excuse for his presence, which would in any case have been impossible; he merely greeted his beloved's father with a cheerful "Good morning!"

_"Good morning!"_ Halmion echoed, his face a purple mass of rage. "What do you mean by that - _my liege_? D'you expect me to ignore the fact that I've just caught you sneaking out of my daughter's bedchamber?"

"Please do keep your voice down," Elros said mildly, "or it will carry through the door. She wants to sleep."

"So you admit your villainy! I suppose you expect me to give in to your depraved whim as easily as the fathers of all the other young girls whose innocence you have defiled! Well, I for one will not be bought off or intimidated into silence. Your rank holds no terrors for me. You may shut me in the deepest of dungeons-"

"I have no intention of doing any such-"

"-but I _will bear witness_!"

"Oh, do calm down."

"Calm down - by the One-"

"I don't think you quite understand my intentions."

"Intentions? What intentions can you possibly have, you whose life is devoted to licentiousness and sodomy?"

"I will shut you in no dungeon," Elros said, "if only because I want to marry your daughter."

The look on Halmion's face was, as Tindómiel would have said, no mere picture but a priceless work of art.

Halmiel, when she woke up, complained that he should have asked her before mentioning the prospect of their marriage to Halmion. Was her consent of no importance?

"It is, it is, of course it is, my heart," he gabbled, dropping to his knees before her. "Forgive me, I beg you. Will you marry me?"

He looked up at her, a mischievous smile hovering about his lips.

She laid a small light hand on his jetty curls.

"Of course," she said.

On their wedding night, two years later, he confessed that he had not really been so confident of her acceptance as she might have imagined from his twinkling eyes, that her petulant words had momentarily cast his heart into a deep black shadow; confessed that he still did not know why she had agreed to lower herself to his level. Why was it?

"Because I love you, fool."

"But why do you love me? How can you?"

"I might with more reason ask that question of you, except that there are no reasons we can pick out, really. I loved you as soon as I saw you."

"But you're too good for me..."

Halmiel ignored this.

"Do you know the one thing that might have made me love you more than I already did - if I hadn't already loved you perfectly?" she said.

"What?"

"I don't think I'll tell you tonight. I feel too tired."

"Let me persuade you - like this..."

"Elros, you are shameless! All right. It was how you told me about yourself - _that night_, you know? It was so sweet of you."

"My darling, you are everything that is sweet. I am only your humble servant."

Already _that night _was coming to acquire a mythical significance for them; how much more was it so in these latter days! _That night, that night. _He was 112 on _that night_, and she was twenty-three. That was almost three hundred years ago.

.~.~.~.~.

Aglarin and Íriel were standing before Hiril's dressing-table in Manwendil's home in Armenelos. Aglarin was not quite sure how this situation had come about. It seemed that Íriel, who had not had time to satisfy her curiosity about this new cousin before bed on the previous evening, had kidnapped him when they had met at the eighth hour of the morning in the passage onto which both of their bedrooms opened. She had promptly whirled him away to the garden and shown him how to make boats out of leaves and sail them on the ornamental lake there.

After breakfast, they had spent half an hour playing in the streets of Armenelos. When the cold finally caught up with Íriel - it took some time, for she moved like quicksilver -, she proposed that she should show him her home.

Manwendil's house turned out to be very clean and furnished in the most anonymously fashionable, but expensive, style. It made Aglarin nervous; he had never seen anything like it. The house in which he had been brought up had been little more than a cottage, simple but comfortable. Elros' villa, although many times larger and more luxurious, partook of the same reassuring sense of being a genuine family home. Atanalcar's, by contrast, was overflowing with a disunified chaos of costly objects that its owner happened to like. Aglarin wandered there as insubstantially as a ghost.

"I'm not really supposed to go in here," Íriel had said casually as she flung open her mother's door, "but no-one will know."

He was distressed by this information. If Hiril found out about this intrusion of her inner sanctum, as she well might from one of the servants, would he - with the responsibility of his superior age - not be blamed for letting her do it? When she began to pull handfuls of gold and silver jewellery out of her mother's drawers, he ventured to hint that it might be time for them to return to the villa. She ignored him. Of all things, she hated being told what to do.

Miserably, he watched her unclasping a silver necklace and letting one end trail across the polished surface of the dressing-table, which reflected the glistening rope dimly. Slowly, she lowered her hand towards it, so that the necklace pooled in a silver heap. Wearying of this game, she arranged the chain in the outline of a butterfly. Then she looked up and grinned at Aglarin.

"All right," she said, "let's go."

Riding out of Armenelos, Elros met a beggar and was delighted to give him the few gold coins that he had with him, together with a note that entitled him to dinner in the palace kitchen. The old man thanked him with tears. As he prepared to mount once more, he heard a wild yell that could have issued only from the throat of his granddaughter Íriel, whom he now saw running across the street. He caught her up in his arms and whirled her about with as much ease as when she was three. Putting her down, he caught sight of Aglarin looking at him shyly from some distance away.

"I suppose you two want a lift?" he said.

Íriel squealed happily as he lifted her up before him; she loved riding with her grandfather on his magnificent black stallion. Elros leaned down and held out his hands to Aglarin.

"Come on!" he called. "You can ride behind."

Aglarin hoped that he would not be too heavy for the horse.

"Don't be silly! He can bear heavier burdens than the three of us. Why, you look as if you weigh no more than a feather."

The tone in which he spoke these words was gentle, and gently he lifted the boy up. Something in that anxious little face had made him think of that other child, left alone and friendless at an even younger age, who had in some unbelievably remote age of the world been himself.

When they reached the villa, Aglarin lingered in the stable, watching the groom untacking the beautiful animal. By the time he returned to the house, the vestibule into which the front door opened was empty. No sound carried from any of the rooms; there might have been no-one in the building. No Íriel of the quicksilver feet. No Cousin Vardilmë of the woolly smile. Not one of those other mysterious relatives of whom he knew almost nothing. No Atanalcar.

Oh, if only there were no Atanalcar!

Atanalcar made Aglarin profoundly nervous; just as Aglarin, by nature, filled Atanalcar with vague irritation. This irritation - expressed as hearty masculine affection - served to make Aglarin more nervous. A crackling wall of tension had built up between them. Seeing them together was enough to give Tindómiel a headache.

.~.~.~.~.

At dinner, Íriel took a seat by Elros' side and began to talk to him, almost to flirt with him, in her usual way, taking no notice of Aglarin. Tindómiel, who was sitting next to him, noticed - was probably the only other person who noticed - how much this upset him. This discovery made her examine the boy in more detail than she had hitherto done.

When he looked up at her to answer some remark she had made, she became aware for the first time of his extraordinary eyes. They were large and round. She supposed that they were grey; but it was a grey flecked with darker grey and black, like some weird and mysterious stone.

Tindómiel thought, _This is no child_. _This is a half-grown kitten changed into a boy by sorcery._

Aglarin shyly turned his gaze on his food. The miraculous eyes were hidden once more beneath the black lashes.

Perhaps it was the revelation of his eyes that moved her; or perhaps it was his extreme smallness and vulnerability, or his expression that called to her own piercing loneliness, or the fact that she had never liked Atanalcar anyway; but she devoted the rest of the meal to cheering Aglarin up.

It was hard going at first, for she was not used to talking to children, but she quickly found that Aglarin preferred to be spoken to as an adult. The poor boy was so grateful that someone was taking some notice of him that he was soon talking with more cheerfulness and animation than he had shown since the death of his grandmother.

At the other end of the table, Íriel had turned her attention from Elros to Ivanneth, whom she was asking when the baby was due to be born.

"April," the mother-to-be answered, smiling. "A propitious time of year for the birth of a future king, I think?"

"To be sure," Elros beamed. "April is my own birth-month."

"Oh well," Vardamir murmured, "there's a good sign!"

"I myself am a child of May," Ivanneth remarked.

Her husband commented that it explained her summer-like sweetness.

Here Hiril, who had been quivering with tenseness ever since Íriel had first asked her question, said in a strange high voice,

"My own birthday falls towards the end of autumn. Tomorrow, in fact. I will be thirty."

This outburst caused a range of reactions among the company. Most of their faces showed embarrassment; Manwendil looked vaguely pained; but Ivanneth was visibly stricken with horror.

"_Thirty?" _she cried. "Why then you are two years younger than me!"


	4. Chapter 4

Erilon had always been an early riser. Now that he was old - though it did not show in his face! -, he scarcely seemed to need any sleep at all, or at least he was often up soon after dawn. Such was the case the next morning. He got out of bed quietly, from habit, although he knew perfectly well that no power of Manwë or Morgoth would wake his sleeping companion before the tenth hour.

Elros lay curled up in his usual foetal position. His great advantage as a bedfellow was that he rarely tossed and turned; nevertheless, he still somehow managed to steal most of the bedclothes every night, presumably by pulling them more and more tightly around himself as the night wore on and he sank deeper into unconsciousness. His sleeping face looked almost incredibly innocent and childlike. Erilon could not resist bending down and brushing his lips across his cheek.

When he had dressed himself, he went over to the window and looked out to see that, as a change from the previous day's unseasonably warm weather, a blanket of stratus opacus had covered the sky in the night. Elros would not be pleased. Elros loved only sunny weather.

Before passing through the connecting door into his own bedroom, where he would read until he could reasonably expect Erelos to be up, Erilon unlocked the other door, the one that opened onto the passage. When, according to long custom, he had unlocked the corresponding door to his own room and locked the connecting door, there would be nothing to show that he had ever been with Elros.

.~.~.~.~.

As is the case with all of us, Erilon's story had begun long before his birth. One chapter had commenced with the birth of his great-great-grandmother Berendis in Dor-lómin. Her mother, Berelas, was also a native of that land, but both of _her _parents had been born in Dorthonion, whence they had escaped after the Dagor Bragollach with Emeldir the Manhearted as children.

Berendis' father was an Easterling, but she had never known his name or the circumstances of her conception. When she was three years old, her mother had fled to the New Havens at the Mouths of Sirion, where Berendis' numerous distinctive qualities began to develop themselves. She was a woman of many incarnations and many mysteries. Those who had seen her, whether it was in her defensive adolescence or as a fierce-eyed mother or as the defiantly eccentric old lady who finally chose to accentuate her otherness with scarlet silk dresses and enormous gold hoop earrings, tended to remember her.

Her closest friend was Celebrimbor, Curufin's son, whom she first got to know as a child. It was perhaps from him that she acquired the moral conceptions that were to govern her throughout her long life, which were essentially and manifestly that of the Eldar.

At the age of seventeen, Berendis repeated her mother's mistake with an orphaned boy of Hadorian extraction, conceiving her son Belethil. The most curious thing about this episode was her utter lack of shame for her behaviour.

Now, it is a well-known thing that the attitude of the Eldar to the sins of the flesh is quite different to ours. Among that race, a pair who join in the union of the bodies are considered to be married, so that fornication does not exist as a crime. It seemed to those few who knew her well that Berendis had imbibed a version of this doctrine from the elves who surrounded her at Sirion's Mouth, modifying it for her own use.

As for Belethil's father, he sailed with Eärendil before his paramour even knew that she was with child and was never seen again. She was left to care for her son on her own, which, no doubt, she much preferred.

Belethil died ten years before Erilon was born, but he gathered from what he was told by his grandmother Bereth, Belethil's daughter, that his great-grandfather had been the great love and care of Berendis' life, although (or perhaps because) he did not resemble her in looks or personality, being quite fair-skinned and extremely gentle and timid.

Having come to manhood's estate, Belethil surprised many by winning as his wife the lovely Niphredil, of whom it was said that she could have passed for one of the Dark Elves from whom she was reputedly descended. She too had been born at the New Havens during the brief time of their prosperity. Her father had sailed on Eärendil's first voyage and been lost at sea. After the destruction of the Havens, her mother had fled to Ossiriand, with a small group of other refugees, and there expired from exposure and want. As you know, little Niphredil was taken in by Galathil, who lived in that region with his Nandorin wife, Edhellin.

After their marriage, Belethil and Niphredil moved - with Berendis - to Dor-lómin, which had recently been liberated from the Easterlings. There they ran a small farm and produced two children, of whom Bereth was the elder. She married young, choosing one of her father's farmhands as a husband, and gave birth to Erilon's mother, Gladhwen, at twenty.

Niphredil and her children often travelled alone or separately to Ossiriand, to visit Galathil, whose wife left him to return to her own people when Bereth was nine. Bereth and her seven-year-old daughter were staying with him when Dor-lómin was drowned in the convulsions of the earth that accompanied the final battle of the War of Wrath. The young woman lost her husband, parents and brother, together with almost everyone else that she knew, in a single calamity. Berendis, however, survived, having decided on the spur of the moment to accompany her granddaughter and great-granddaughter to Ossiriand. She was sixty-nine, but they bred tough women in the House of Bëor.

Nevertheless, for all her strength, the loss of her son nearly broke her. For months she sat in her room in Galathil's house, tearless and almost silent in her grief, resisting all attempts at comfort, eating just enough to keep herself alive. She was generally expected to die of this sorrow.

But she was too tough for that. She had survived everything else that Middle-earth had thrown at her: she would survive this too. One fine spring day, hearing the call to life of all the living eating reproducing creatures that were sustained by the growing trees of Ossiriand, she got up and rode to the nearest town to commission from a seamstress half-a-dozen gowns in the brightest possible colours.

All her life she had been known for her repression. She had gained power from it in the minds of others, as one bursting with stored energy. But now she was old, the war was over, life was revealed as being too short to withhold from oneself the luxuries of bright clothing and ribald jokes. And so she became the wildly individualistic great-great-grandmother for whom the young Erilon was to feel a mixture of admiration and fear when Bereth took him to visit her in Eriador, where she spent her last years with her old friend Celebrimbor. He was eleven when she died, peacefully, in her sleep, at ninety.

.~.~.~.~.

Erilon never knew his mother. Moreover, he knew very little about her, for while Bereth was always ready to talk for hours about her youth and ancestry, it seemed that she could not bear to discuss her only child who had died in childbirth at seventeen. Nor could Galathil. Erilon picked up only the bare outlines of his parents' story from what they let slip.

Erilon's father, Meldir, entered the story of the descendants of Beleth through Galathil's sister Eluwen, who kept house for their relative Círdan. She wrote to her brother shortly after the ruin of Thangorodrim saying that she had come across a child of the Edain (of the People of Bëor, more precisely) who had been orphaned by the death of his father in battle, his mother having died some years earlier. The boy was now living with some distant cousins who obviously did not want him. Eluwen was sorry for him, but felt that her responsibilities would not allow her to adopt a child. Since Galathil had already reared one orphan, she suggested, perhaps he might like to take in another?

Galathil may have been influenced in his decision to do so by the fact that Meldir was exactly the same age as little Gladhwen, who had been thrown under his protection through such a tragic train of events. Both Niphredil and his own daughter Nimloth had had lonely childhoods in the tree-whispering depths of Ossiriand; perhaps he wanted Niphredil's granddaughter to have at least one playmate.

If so, his plan succeeded in so far that Meldir and Gladhwen were inseparable companions throughout their childhood, playing together in the woods for hours. Their excursions continued into adolescence; Bereth suspected nothing amiss until she noticed that the sixteen-year-old Gladhwen's belly was beginning to swell.

When Galathil and Bereth confronted them, the young lovers, who were little more than children, were shocked and stricken with guilt at the idea that they had deceived their elders. It had not occurred to them to think of their delightful secret in so grim a light, any more than they had considered the possibility of Gladhwen's falling with child. Of course, they were quite happy to marry. It was what they had always wanted.

Erilon gathered that Meldir had been broken by his bride's death. His infant son was little comfort to him. He felt no animosity towards him, but it was impossible for him to think of himself as a father when he was only a boy who had lost the girl he adored. He followed her beyond the Circles of the World two years later, killed by a boar while hunting with Galathil and some of their few Nandorin friends. As a race, the Green-elves keep themselves to themselves.

According to what Galathil told Erilon, his father could have saved himself, but "he no longer wished to live", as he said with a sigh. Erilon pictured the scene to himself, like a page in an illuminated manuscript. His parents' story filled him with sentimental pity, but he felt no personal connection to it. Perhaps because Bereth was always telling him that he had inherited her mother's beauty, he felt he had more in common with Belethil and Niphredil and the tragic household that they had presided over in Dor-lómin.

He had a strange childhood. He never doubted his grandmother's love for him, or Galathil's affection, but they could not help imbuing the child's early years with their own sadness. He had no idea what Bereth might have been like when she was young; when he knew her, her every word and action was characterised by a patient melancholy. Her lost kin were always with her.

Galathil had his own ghosts: the beloved wife who had deserted him; the only child who had died the death of grief for the loss of her own daughter; the fosterling whom the terrible sea had taken; the girl who had died to bring forth life; the boy who had fallen to the boar's tusk. All of their shades walked the green labyrinth of Ossiriand for him. When Erilon was sixteen, unable to bear it any longer, he announced that he was sailing for Tol Eressëa.

Bereth told him, sincerely, that she understood. She knew he would have gone many years earlier if she, Gladhwen and Meldir had not turned up, in need of protection. He had done far more for her family than they had a right to expect from him. Besides, they would all meet again in a few years, for it was rumoured that the Ainur and Eldar had almost finished preparing the great western isle where the Edain were to receive the reward for their heroic sufferings in the war against Morgoth.

By the time Galathil left them, Erilon knew that he preferred people of his own gender to girls. He could not say when he had first become consciously aware of this fact; it was as if he had known it always, which was of course impossible. Having been raised by an elf and a woman in whom Berendis and Niphredil had instilled the elvish view that love between two of the same sex is no more wicked than love between a male and a female, he was not ashamed of his propensities, but he saw no reason to talk about them to anyone. They were private to himself.

Twice, over the next eight years, he became infatuated with beautiful Green-elves, but, having the sense to understand that these desires had no chance of being fulfilled, he kept them locked within his heart. It was best to relegate that sort of thing to the uncertain future; his life in Ossiriand was not permanent; there was always the possibility that he might find love in the promised western paradise. Probably his grandmother entertained a similar hope on his behalf, ignorant though she was of his sexual orientation. She knew he was unlikely to find a bride while they continued to live in the woodland seclusion of Galathil's house.

Bereth did not live to see Erilon married, although, as things turned out, this was perhaps rather a mercy than the tragedy it might appear. The harsh winter of the thirtieth year of the Second Age claimed the lives of many of the aged among Men, including Erilon's grandmother. She fell an easy victim to bronchitis, being worn out by grief beyond her sixty-one years. When Erilon had buried her in the frozen ground, he stood over her grave and knew himself alone in the world, last of the line of Beleth. There was no-one left that he loved or who loved him; only a very small number of casual acquaintances.

For the next six months, he gave himself up altogether to grief. However, he had not completely ceased to hope for the future, even if he thought he had. Everyone knew now that the great migration was near at hand; he realised afterwards that he was safe to spend this time in mourning, for it was bound to be short.

One fine August day, Erilon returned from a solitary walk under the trees to find a strange man sitting on his doorstep, his horse tied to a nearby tree. He stood up at Erilon's approach, and they stood looking at each other in silence. Erilon thought there was something familiar about the stranger; after a moment, he realised that he reminded him of Galathil's great-grandson Elrond, who had visited him several times during Erilon's childhood. However, this man was certainly not Elrond. To be sure, he had Elrond's raven curls - like Elrond, he looked to be no more than a boy - his eyes were the same shade of deep even grey - but the laughing expression in those eyes was not the same.

"You must be Erilon son of Meldir," the stranger said at this point. "I am Elros, foster-son of Maedhros. We're cousins. I would have come before if I'd known how beautiful you were. Pleased to meet you."

_The Head of the House of Hador, _Erilon thought in awe. _The Head of the House of B_ë_or. The heir of Gondolin and Doriath. The future king of the west-land._

"Please come in," he said weakly. "Er - I'm afraid I can't offer you much in the way of hospitality - not what you're used to, anyway…"

"Don't worry, I'm easy to please." Elros winked at Erilon.

As they entered the house, he flung up his hands, exclaiming: "Good heavens, this place hasn't changed since I was a boy!"

"Hasn't it… ?"

They sat down at the kitchen table.

"Don't you find it rather isolated?" Elros asked.

"I don't know, I've lived here all my life."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-four."

"Do you have many friends?"

"No, none. I am alone."

Elros smiled with an only slightly condescending sympathy at Erilon, who was blushing furiously, having said more than he would have wished to in the naked unguardedness of his astonishment at this apparition. "I can do something about that," he said. "I came here with the intention of asking you to throw in your lot with me, if I found I liked you."

"And do you like me?" Erilon asked, overwhelmed.

Elros smiled again.

"Very much."

"What do you mean, 'throw in my lot with you'?"

"Well, it's like this. You, my brother and I are the only surviving descendants of Bëor. It will only be us two in the new land. I thought you might like to join my household, just until things are sorted out over there. Join forces and all that. Are you willing?"

"Yes!" Erilon said with a burst of fervour, as if Elros' question had woken him from a dream.

Elros laughed. "That's settled then!"

They went on talking for the rest of the afternoon, or rather Elros talked while Erilon listened in silent admiration of his experience and eloquence. He asked only one question, as Elros was preparing to leave.

"Did you say you'd been to this house before?"

"Yes, Elrond and I came to stay with Galathil when we were boys."

"Why did you never come when I was here?"

"Too busy. Actually, I didn't get on with the old fellow very well."

"Why not?" Erilon asked, somewhat stung by this contemptuous dismissal of his surrogate father, although already completely besotted with Elros. "He is the most generous of souls."

"But a bit dull, don't you find? Anyway, he doesn't like my foster-father."

"Isn't that only natural?"

"My dear Erilon, if you knew the truth about the so-called Kinslayings - but no matter, we don't have time to go into all that now. Another day." Elros swung himself into the saddle. "Goodbye, cousin. I'll be back!"

He rode off, waving. Erilon stood in the doorway and watched him disappear into the trees.

_So this is it, _he thought,_ the real thing. This is love._

_.~.~.~.~._

Yes, Erilon had fallen in love at last. It was indeed the real thing, the piercing pain, the violence of desire for self-destruction in the body and soul of the love-object. It had happened irrevocably over the course of that one sunny afternoon.

Naturally, Elros was very busy over the seven months that passed before the sailing to Númenor, but he did find time to visit Erilon and go riding with him on several occasions. It was a strange companionship that they kept in that strange time between times. They talked of almost everything, but never of love - and yet Erilon sometimes suspected that Elros was flirting with him. He could not be sure, because his quiet upbringing had left him with an almost laughable ignorance of affairs of the heart. He had little idea of how a love affair, especially one between two men, was conducted. Who was supposed to make the first move? What was it?

Oddly, he did not feel these questions to be urgent. He was content to wait, as they were all waiting in those months. At least he did not doubt that his beloved shared his inclinations; the rumours concerning his unorthodox propensities had not escaped his eager ears. Nor did he fear that Elros did not find him attractive. By a thousand compliments, he made it obvious that he did.

Erilon concluded that he was simply waiting, magician-like, for the perfect moment at which he would cause to spring from the ashes of their curious friendship something glorious and transcendent. In the meantime, he, Erilon, was content to wait and trust in the object of his devotion to do whatever needed to be done, and do it perfectly.

.~.~.~.~.

Elros inaugurated his reign by taking a tour of his new realm with a few attendants, of whom Erilon was one. They travelled light, seldom making camp in the same spot on two nights in succession. Erilon remembered the perfect joy of that time for the rest of his long life.

Nùmenor in the glow of that first May was as beautiful as the body of a virgin girl - or a boy. It was as beautiful as the first light on the dew of morning in the hidden valleys of Ossiriand, as lovely as the celandine in spring. It was the crystalline glimmer of untrodden snow. It was everything that was utterly fresh and unspoilt by the hand of Adan. The animals - Where did the animals come from? Erilon never quite wanted to destroy the mystery by asking Galathil - knew no fear of human touch. Valinor before the death of the Two Trees could not have been more perfect in Erilon's eyes than this; Taniquetil could not be more imposing than the great mountain in the heart of the new land.

Of course, there was no question that everything was twice as beautiful for Elros' company.

One day, they were riding together, ahead of their companions, through the region that later came to be known as the Andustar, which, they agreed, was the most delightful in the whole island. Breasting a small hill, they suddenly found themselves looking down upon a scene of dreamlike loveliness; a valley whose sloping sides were covered in wild cherry trees in full bloom. It was a sea of white. Between the trees, they caught a glimpse of running water at the bottom of the valley.

Erilon let out a cry of joy and spurred his horse down the hillside and into the enchanted vale, followed by Elros at a more sedate pace. He had always loved fruit trees. There had been an ancient apple tree and some exquisite cherries near his old home in Ossiriand.

"Could anything be more beautiful than a cherry tree in flower?" he asked Elros ecstatically as they explored among the lines of smooth grey trunks, keeping his voice low out of reverence for the sacramental atmosphere of the place.

"Well," Elros answered, "they're very nice, but I think you could give them a fair run for their money." He added, laughing at the other's blush, "Actually, you look quite like one yourself, cousin - blossom-white and cherry-red!"

To hide his embarrassment, Erilon dismounted and walked over to the nearest tree, leading his horse. Placing his free hand against the bark of the trunk, he looked up into the eyes of a male blackbird who was sitting on a lower branch. For a moment, Erilon imagined that a petal had become attached to his neck, before he realised that it was actually a patch of white feathers. When he held out his hand and whistled, the bird flew to him and perched on his wrist, doubtless curious about this strange intruder.

"So tame!" Erilon marvelled, gently stroking the midnight feathers.

"It won't last," Elros said, dismounting himself. "Men kill too freely."

"Not all Men. I hate killing."

"Ah, but you are not entirely human, any more than I am. Is it not true that the blood of the Dark Elves runs in your veins?"

"So they say."

"Everyone knows it's true; they only have to look at your face." Elros put his arm around Erilon's waist and squeezed it for a moment. "Peredhel!"

They walked on in silence for a few minutes before coming to the small river that they had glimpsed. A family of swans were sailing through the clear, willow-shaded water.

"So you like this place, cousin?" Elros asked Erilon as he secured their mounts to a tree.

"I've never seen anything so wonderful in my life."

"Would you like me to give it to you?"

"_What? _Give me what?"

"This valley."

"But what would I do with it?"

"Listen, Erilon. I want you to have a place on my council of advisors. Your lineage alone entitles you to this, but you really ought to have some land of your own. There'll be murmurs if one of my councillors is dependent on me."

"But I'd be indebted to you for everything!"

"That doesn't matter, people will forget it in time. I'll give you enough gold to take care of yourself."

"Will I have to live here?"

"No, of course not, not unless you want to anyway. There'll always be a bed for you in my house."

"I'm too grateful-"

"Don't be silly." Elros took Erilon's hand; they had sat down together under a willow tree. After a silence, he spoke again, his tone as serious as ever in his life: "I want you to be happy. You share my blood, besides being beautiful. We are both Peredhil. You must have a home of your own; you might not always want to spend your life hanging around me. You won't want to cut down any trees, so I'll give you a few acres of adjoining land as well."

"Thank you," Erilon said gravely.

"You're pleased, then? You're happy?"

"Of course."

"How happy? Very, very happy?"

"Yes."

"Good," said Elros, who had retained Erilon's hand, looking into his cousin's face. "So am I."

And he kissed him on the mouth. It was a winderful kiss, as tender and gentle as a snowflake's touch; as passionate as the winds in the last days of autumn. Erilon was lost, swamped in a mire of sensation. He could not have said how much time passed before Elros withdrew his mouth for a moment to exclaim in a tone of strangely innocent surprise and wonder:

"Oh! How beautiful you are!"

After that, they passed beyond words.

.~.~.~.~.

When it was over, they lay in each other's arms on the shaded riverbank and talked. Erilon was not entirely satisfied with this interlude. In the first place, he would have been just as happy to lie still and silently savour the lingering feel of Elros' kisses - like burning snow - on his skin. He did not mind talking, but he kept wanting to ask his cousin all sorts of questions about his past, fired with the insatiable desire of a new lover to know everything about his beloved, from his first experience of love to whether he liked men better than women. Elros, on the other hand, seemed intent on evading his inquiries and presenting him with a sort of agenda for their future relations.

Elros was doubtless guilty of many crimes, but deceit was not one of them, at least not deceit in the lists of love. It was perhaps another matter with those boorish counsellors of his; but any man or woman who was worthy to be loved by Elros Tar-Minyatur deserved to hear the truth. He carefully explained to each and every one of those who shared his bed before the apparition of Halmiel, as he explained to Erilon on that May afternoon, that he was incapable of fidelity for any period of time and would in all probability move on from them within months. Each and every one of them failed to believe him - no, they may have believed him; they simply could not make real the connection between these truths and Elros' warm body against theirs. Erilon was no exception.

.~.~.~.~.

After the site of the capital had been decided on, everything progressed at a miraculous rate. It seemed to Erilon no time at all before the roads were being laid out. Elros was designing a house for himself, the very one in which the events of this story took place. He wanted to feel his own roof over his head by October, as he did not fancy spending the winter under canvas or on board the ship that Círdan had given him.

Elros never did care much for the sea.

From morning till night, the king was absorbed in a whirl of activity and argument. The terms of disagreement between him and his counsellors varied; the heart of the matter was always a question of power. Elros wanted absolute power and the counsellors - sober men of a certain age, most of them, chosen because they had some influence with the various races of his new subjects; men who would really rather have done without this peculiar king who had been foisted upon them by the Valar - wanted to deny it him.

He had little time for the joys of love. He told Erilon that his devotion was a great support for him, but they were very rarely able to meet in private. Elros insisted on the most rigorous precautions against discovery. Erilon, having left Ossiriand for the wider world too recently to appreciate the prejudices rooted in the hearts of most Men in this Arda Marred of ours, would have like to share his joy with everyone he knew; but he deferred to Elros in this as in everything. Nevertheless, he spent these months in a cloud of happiness. If his secret meetings with Elros, for which alone he lived, were rare and furtive, they were nevertheless a measureless joy.

He did not hang around Elros all the time; his new estate in the Andustar, where he had hired a group of labourers to clear some ground to build a house, provided an external interest. He could place trust in the foreman, who had been recommended to Elros as absolutely efficient after he had made it known that his young cousin was in need of the services of such a man - it was useful to be a royal favourite sometimes! -, but he rode over there for a few days several times during the summer and early autumn, just to see how the work was progressing.

As soon as Elros had installed himself and Erilon in his new house at the end of September, a message arrived from the Valar ordering him to give thanksgiving to Eru in a public ceremony on the Meneltarma. Elros seized with glee upon the detailed instructions contained in the letter. "A festival of celebration!" he said to Erilon. "How perfect! What a community-builder! Why, if it were not for the blessed Valar, I should have had to invent such a thing myself!"

Galathil came to Númenor for the first Eruhantalë. He and Erilon were glad to see each other again, but Elros' presence was a constraint between them. Galathil and Elros did not seem to dislike each other, exactly, but Elros obviously found Galathil laughable and mildly irritating, while Galathil, although his intentions towards his great-grandson appeared to be friendly, seemed to find his friendship with Erilon a matter for concern for some reason.

It was two days before they found themselves alone together. They went for a walk in the wilderness surrounding Elros' villa, where Halmiel would later cultivate her exquisite garden. Galathil told Erilon of the beauty and peace of Tol Eressëa, and of his hope that his beloved daughter Nimloth would one day be released from the Halls of Mandos and join him there.

"I'd love to see it," Erilon commented.

It began to rain, and they took shelter under a large holly tree. Here Erilon briefly informed Galathil of the relations between Elros and himself. "I'm very happy," he said. "I love him more than life. Aren't you pleased for me?"

"Yes," Galathil said slowly. "I hope you may long continue in such happiness. Only… I hope you know that you can always rely on me as a friend. Your great-grandmother was - very dear to me. She was like my second daughter to me. For her sake, I always cared for you, and your mother before you. You understand what I'm saying."

"Yes, of course. Thank you."

Erilon was moved, yet somewhat annoyed by Galathil's implication that he was likely to require consolation for injuries suffered from Elros. He was also aware of the utter futility of the other's undoubtedly sincere declaration. They lived in different worlds now; there was nothing practical that Galathil could do to help him if he needed it.

They did not discuss Elros again during Galathil's visit.

.~.~.~.~.

Galathil's fears were confirmed when Erilon gave a party to celebrate the New Year and spent the entire evening flirting with the wife of one of his counsellors. She was of Bëorian descent, pretty but not a great beauty, and highly flattered by the king's attention. Her husband too seemed to be flattered, even when Elros invited them both to stay the night.

The only victim was Erilon; but Erilon suffered such concentrated misery that it more than made up for the gratification of the other three. He passed a night of unsleeping agony, wishing that he had never been born.

The counsellor and his wife left the next morning. Erilon did not know when or how to confront Elros. Finally, after almost a week of indecision, he decided to beard the dragon in its lair - Elros' bedroom at midnight, when they would both be supposed to be asleep.

Elros responded to Erilon's accusations with a kind of bemusement that was as genuine as it was horrible. He honestly did not see what there was for Erilon to be concerned about. Had he not warned him, perfectly clearly?

"You have betrayed me!"

"No, I have _not_," Elros said, taking the other by the shoulders and turning him towards himself. They were sitting on Elros' bed. He was entirely naked, as it was his custom to sleep.

Erilon, still decently clothed, turned away. It was becoming hard to maintain his singleness of mind.

"I thought you loved me."

"Why? I never said so."

This cruel stroke sent Erilon into floods of tears. Elros, overcome by his easy spontaneous compassion, gallantly attempted to comfort him. One thing led to another, as it so often did, with Elros. Erilon's tranquillity was temporarily restored.

It did not last. The next woman was more beautiful than the first and had a more lasting attraction for Elros, possibly because he never actually had an opportunity to bed her. She was the sister-in-law of another counsellor, six months pregnant and newly arrived from Middle-earth with her devoted and jealous husband. This man would rather have died than allow his wife to meet Elros unattended, but he could hardly stop them flirting, or decline the invitations that came for them to spend congenial evenings at the king's new house. Erilon sat through these evenings in a state of dejection that cannot be described. (Elros would have characterised it as 'the sulks'.) But he still made those midnight pilgimages through the connecting door.

And then Aiwerin came.

Aiwerin's mistrust of the past, which has already been touched upon, was of such magnitude that she would never, under any provocation, disclose a single detail of the nineteen years that had passed for her before Elros met her blue eyes on that damp February afternoon. No, that is not quite true. She did confide to her daughter, fifty years later, that her mother had been, like herself, a prostitute. That was all.

Elros strongly disapproved of prostitution. For him, lovemaking was a work of art. It hardly mattered whether his partner was a man or a woman; his goal was to give them as much pleasure as he could, for it was in this that he found the greatest pleasure for himself. Rape was to him not only loathsome but unimaginable. This mutual pleasure was not something that could be bought. The sexual act itself should ideally be the climax of a lengthy process of seduction.

(It must be admitted that Erilon did not treat Aiwerin to a lengthy seduction; but she had a way of overturning his little conventions. Golden-haired blue-eyed women were in general an anathema to him.)

Elros' solution to the problem of Aiwerin's being a prostitute was not to pay her for sleeping with him. Rather naïvely, he imagined that this made their affair a free and glorious meeting of like-minded bodies, totally unconnected to his generous gifts to her and the prestige that attends the mistresses of kings.

For Aiwerin's relations with Elros were public in a way that Erilon's never could be. She was given a room in the still-uncompleted palace, as well as one in the villa outside Armenelos, with no great secret made about her function there; Elros took her everywhere with him and introduced her to his acquaintances as "my beautiful flower of the House of Hador…" The counsellor's sister-in-law went away to live in the untamed wastes of the Forostar and bore a fine son to her jealous husband and was forgotten.

Erilon too was forgotten. He could only lurk in the shadows and watch them, all through the unspeakable flowering of that terrible spring. He suffered nights of sleepless longing, yearning for Elros with all his body and all his soul. It sometimes happened that he fell asleep amid these tortures and dreamed - not of Elros; that was the greatest horror. It was as if he had stared so long and so desperately at Aiwerin's fair hair and her curiously opaque blue eyes that they had worked their way into his very imagination. He loved Elros. Yet it was of Aiwerin that he dreamed.

There was no-one to whom he could turn for help. Galathil was the only person in the world to whom he might have told his troubles, but he never even considered writing to him. Apart from the fact that he could not imagine any good coming of it, it would have been a betrayal of Elros, which was unthinkable to him.

Towards the middle of June, Elros went away to Eldalondë to greet an elvish delegation from Tol Eressëa. It was little more than a year since he and Erilon had lain together in the beautiful summer of the Andustar; but it might have happened in another world on the hideously bright day that Erilon and Aiwerin waved farewell to him.

Later, when they were sitting down together to a supper served by attendants who had learned to cater for Elros' whim that they should be as invisible as possible, she surprised Erilon very much by doing something almost unprecedented. She spoke to him.

"He does like a bit of show, doesn't he?"

It was amazing how quickly her voice - which had, as has been mentioned, always been beautiful - had lost the rough accent that had marred it in February, so that she now spoke with as much refinement as any lady in Armenelos. Amazing, too, how quickly she was picking up natural history and geography and above all the Quenya language from those textbooks into which she was always disappearing. Amazing - and rather frightening.

He stared at her, trying to decide whether her comment was insulting to Elros, distracted by the sight of her round white breasts peeping demurely out of the low neck of her sky-blue dress.

"What do you mean, he likes a bit of show?"

"Like a peacock. He enjoys displaying himself to the world. I expect it has something to do with his mother abandoning him, don't you think?"

"I would much prefer it if you did not talk about him in that way, especially when he is not here."

"When else do you talk about people?"

"_I _rarely do!"

"But he does," she said. "He talks about you all the time."

"What?"

Aiwerin nodded her small and perfectly-formed head. "Oh, yes."

That was the end of that conversation, but, after supper, Aiwerin invited Erilon to share a glass of wine with her. For reasons unclear to himself, he accepted. It was very good wine. Everything in Elros' house was good. This had been given to him by Finarfin and had originated in the vineyards of Valinor. "Isn't that funny to think of?" said Aiwerin. "So, you are in love with our Great King, are you?"

Erilon started as if he had inadvertently sat on a scorpion. The room was still light, strangely illuminated by both the summer evening's radiance and a scattering of pale candles, so he could see Aiwerin's pretty little face quite clearly. It was smiling.

"Did he tell you that?"

"Of course he did. I'm afraid he doesn't cherish your privacy quite so much as you seem to imagine. - Oh, don't worry. I don't think any the less of you for it. How could I, when-"

"I don't care what you think!"

"Please. Don't misunderstand me. I do not wish any harm on you, Erilon. Far from it. I personally find our mutual friend's conduct towards you rather repulsive." Her voice and manner had undergone some mysterious transformation; the frighteningly metallic charm had been changed for something nearer to sincerity. But Aiwerin was never more wholeheartedly bent on her own interests than when she was sincerely concerned for the interests of others.

.~.~.~.~.

"Don't you think we ought to finish that bottle? Now we've opened it. Don't you think?"

Erilon muttered something about "hardly a moral obligation", but accepted yet another glass of the wine from the vineyards of Valinor. Aiwerin had spent the last two hours mainly in detailed discussion of Elros' many faults, Erilon in impotent horror at her blasphemy and failed attempts to dream up a complete refutation for her slanders. Suddenly she met his baleful glare and laughed. There was something attractive even in the mechanical quality of her tinkle. "You really do love him, don't you?"

"With all my heart."

"Now I have never been in love. (Drink up, there's a good boy!) It's surely too late for me to start now. How old are you, Erilon?"

"Twenty-six."

He objected, somehow, to her familiar use of his name, as if she were weaving a magic spell to trap him. But there was no use in quarrelling over trifles.

"How can you be seven years older than me in body, and yet so much younger in spirit, I wonder?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about you, Erilon, and that cloudy bloom of innocence on you. You can't imagine how attractive it is to a creature like me."

Erilon looked down into the depths of his glass and wondered if he was being made a fool of.

"Tell me, Erilon, have you ever made love to a woman? No? I thought not. Dear, I could fall in love with you for the sake of that exquisite blush!" She laughed again.

The invitation was perfectly obvious, even to Erilon. What was unclear, even to Erilon, was why he did not refuse it with so much as a shake of the head. Instead he sat still as a rabbit paralysed by the dancing stoat, while Aiwerin held on on various indifferent topics for another twenty minutes or so, knowing that she had conquered.

Presently she rose and kissed his cheek and went away to bed; but she crept into his room shortly after midnight and bolted the door behind her. He greeted her as the personification of his fate. And, oh! It was delicious to have her silky little body twined in his. It was nothing like Elros. It was a sweet mystery all its own. One does not question such revelations, when they come, in darkness.

It was another story in the grim dawn-light of returning reason1. Erilon wept without cessation. His heart was broken. He had betrayed Elros - with Elros' mistress! There could be no atonement for such a crime.

"Why did I do it, oh, why…"

"Before you dissolve altogether," Aiwerin said, tartly, "may I remind you that Elros has betrayed you with at least five different women over the last six months? I should have thought you would be pleased to get your own back!"

Erilon buried his head in his hands and moaned. It was the fifth hour of the morning; even the servants were asleep. He and Aiwerin were the only wakeful creatures in the entire house.

After seeing her vulnerable nature, Erilon found himself unable to curse her. She had acted only according to her nature. The blame for this gross wickedness rested entirely with himself.

She removed his hands from his face and began to kiss him. He let her; he was so miserable, there seemed no harm in letting her distract him. He followed the same path of logic to her bed, that night and the night after and the night after that. Her willing softness was a relief from his night-demons.

.~.~.~.~.

It was as Aiwerin had told him: Erilon was physically capable of deceiving Elros. They were two halves of the same soul; and yet he was able not to burst into tears at the sight of his lover and confess the whole truth of his relations with Aiwerin. His face would surely have given everything away, if Elros had only looked at the right times, but Elros was still infatuated with Aiwerin. It was a long time since he had looked at Erilon with any amount of care or curiosity.

Aiwerin never gave anything away. Her porcelain mask smiled on Elros with exactly the same absence of feeling as ever.

But for Erilon the stress of deceit was so great, the lonely nights so much worse than ever, the dreams so much more vivid! He could not endure it and ran away for a month to the Andustar, where his house was now habitable. He sat under the cherry trees and composed anguished love letters to Elros, only to burn them because it would be too dangerous to send them.

In the third week of August Elros fell off his horse and broke his leg. It appeared that Aiwerin did not show him sufficient sympathy; at any rate, he wrote to Erilon, begging him to come and comfort him. Erilon dropped everything and came, which Elros took as only his due. He expected to be read to, sung to and pitied, all of which gave Erilon a glow of pleasure in giving pleasure to his loved one. This time would have been an idyll - if only Aiwerin had not hovered in the background like some sweetly malevolent spirit. She called him a faithful hound for returning to lick the boots of his master.

His own actions were a mystery to him. What was it that drove him again and again into Aiwerin's arms, even while Elros, perhaps, tossed awake in pain? Surely it was more than lust? He thought tenderly of her, of _her_ as well as of her body. Could it be possible that he had fallen in love with her? He knew he was still in love with Elros.

"We ought to get married," Aiwerin said. She was sitting on the edge of his bed in her shift and twiddling with a bracelet she was wearing.

"Aiwerin!"

"Wait. Before you say anything, listen! You must take a wife."

"No-"

"It's the only way. Listen, I'll explain. You must marry, if only because of the gossipmongers. You and Elros are already suspected of being lovers, I suppose you know that? Perhaps you want to ruin his reputation along with your own?"

Erilon burrowed deeper in among the blankets. Aiwerin's cold little words, each one striking at his heart, ground, remorselessly, on.

"Of course Elros won't always remain a bachelor for your sake. He has to beget an heir, doesn't he? He will marry, yes. But not for years - and by that time, no woman in her senses will want you for a husband. You will be known everywhere as the fancy-boy you are."

"Aiwerin, please go away. It is too late."

"Too late at night or just generally too late?"

"Both. I don't know. Go, please!"

"What kind of life is this for you, Erilon? He will never love you or be faithful to you. But you will be marked out as a sacrifice to the king's desires. No woman - no man - _no-one _will dare to touch what belongs to the king. You will have no respect among the other counsellors, once all of them know what you are. You will become the figure in the background, the one whose advice is never asked for."

"I see," Erilon said, in a quite calm voice, because he was still in shock from having his soul dismantled. "Anything else?"

"Yes. Don't you want children?"

He was silent at this. How could she have known that it was the one thing that had caused him disquiet even the previous summer, at the height of his brief happiness?

"Of course, having you around will do Elros' popularity no good at all, not after it becomes clear what you are for. People like their lords to conceal their vices."

"Aiwerin."

"Yes?"

"Why do you want to marry me? What's in it for you?"

Something shifted and changed in the porcelain prettiness of her face. Again, it was as if some genuine feeling were peeping out from beneath the half-lowered lids of her cerulean eyes.

"Do you know what happens to the mistresses of rulers, Erilon dear? They grow old. Like other women. And then they are cast off. We are both, now, blessed with the rare gift of beauty; but your beauty is longer-wearing than mine. Possibly another twenty years of being overlooked and humiliated may render you more pale and interesting. I shall be past my best at thirty. That is only eleven years, do you realise, Erilon!

"Elros fancies himself as generous, so I will probably get a big pension and a big house to live out my days in, but no-one will have any respect for me. Not even my servants. They will laugh at their lady behind her back as the king's dried-up old mistress.

"That's not the future I want. My origins were mud, no-one knows it better than I; this is my chance to be someone in this new world that is emerging. I want to be one of the great ladies of this land, not just while I take Elros' fancy but forever. I want a son of mine to have a seat on the Council of the Sceptre. I want to be envied all my life!"

"But why me?"

"Because you are gentle. Because I pity you… And because you are the most beautiful man in Númenor, of course!" Aiwerin added with a musical laugh.

.~.~.~.~.

It was not until after the second Eruhantalë that Elros left Armenelos again, this time to attend the birthday celebrations of an influential someone in the Forostar. He invited Aiwerin to come with him, but she pleaded a feminine indisposition that made it impossible for her to travel. 'When the cat's away' - she looked a very pretty mouse too. Her dress of cornflower-blue silk lent the sole touch of gaiety to their furtive exchange of vows.

She did not bid farewell to any of her fashionable acquaintances in the city, for their cunningly masked, competitive feeling of contempt for her was a mutual one. As for Erilon, there were one or two counsellors with whom he really would have liked to be friends; but Elros had somehow put a pane of smoky glass between him and all other people. He was sorry to part with none of them.

Elros travelled with an escort of guards, counsellors, mistresses and other hangers-on. Erilon and Aiwerin travelled with what they could carry: Aiwerin's jewels and a fair amount of money in gold pieces (all their own, although mostly given to them by Elros). For two days they rode hard from dawn to dusk, sleeping cuddled up together under trees. Thankfully, the weather was mild for November. Erilon had a rather liberating impression of having gone completely mad.

When they reached his house in the Andustar on the third day, he gathered the household together and had them hear Aiwerin explain who and what she was. They had heard of her. Everyone had. Most of them, ignorant of Erilon's own relations with Elros, were fairly proud of his pluck in eloping with the king's girl. Concern was expressed that he might suffer for his rashness, but no-one seemed to fear any disagreable consequences filtering through to them, and one or two even proposed to defend their master and new mistress.

For his part, Erilon had plenty of leisure for worrying about Elros' reaction now that the excitement of the flight was over. Aiwerin had left a brief and strictly factual letter for him, which, they agreed, would probably be forwarded to him in the Forostar. Erilon was terrified that he would then immediately descend upon them in rage, but his wife assured him he was being a fool: Elros had too much regard for his own popularity to do anything so undignified. It would be to cast himself as some kind of vengeful cuckold full of spite against young lovers. No, he would simply have to shake off the anger and pain that the news would undoubtedly bring him with an indulgent laugh. Fortunately he was a master of such shaking off. This was because he only ever allowed two people to touch the deepest wells of his soul: his foster-father and she whom he chose to be his wife.

Elros visited the newlyweds on his way home a couple of weeks later, sending one of his attendants ahead to give them time to prepare for his arrival. The entire household waited for him in front of the house. Erilon, already lead-white and shuddering with fear, was struck dumb when Elros and his entourage rode up. It was Aiwerin who spoke a formal welcome and invited the king inside.

He declined her offer of food, saying that he had already dined at another house, but accepted a glass of wine. He left his train outside; when Aiwerin had dismissed the servants who brought them the wine, the three of them were alone.

"It seems I must congratulate you," Elros said then. Erilon had not yet dared to look at his face, but he detected in his tone a mixture of sarcasm and a bitterness that was perhaps a little self-consciously petty, tinged with a faint uncertainty.

"Thank you," Aiwerin replied sweetly.

Elros answered her across Erilon: "Well, my charming little serpent, I suppose I have you to thank for this development?"

"You suppose correctly."

"You know I could punish both of you for your treachery?"

"Yes, but you will not. You have not the honesty or the courage for it. You are too _kind - _you who will calmly break a man's heart with neglect!"

"I see; that's your attitude. And what do _you _have to say for yourself?" Elros asked after a slight pause, turning suddenly upon Erilon.

He looked up at last, but his eyes were too full for him to read the other's expression. "I'm sorry," he gasped, and fled the room.

He went to his and Aiwerin's bedroom, where he sat down on the bed, covered his face with his hands and wept. He felt that the world had come to an end. The sun was already darkening behind the veil of his tears; before long all the sweet young things of Arda would have rotted away to a dark mess. For it was to that that his love for Elros had come. Yet he was bound with that chain for ever; neither Aiwerin nor any other of the Eruhini could ever save him.

Oh, why, why had he allowed her to persuade him? Looking back further, how could he have let her tempt him into her bed? She meant only good; he had nothing but pity and affection for her; but she did not understand the nature of his heart. If it was not possible for him to love Elros and be loved by Elros, he did not wish to live.

The door opened; he heard familiar footsteps approaching the bed. Elros stood over him.

_This is the end, _he thought. _There can be no life for me after this. Why was I ever born?_

Elros sat down beside him and put his arms around him, covering his face with kisses. Erilon gazed at him with the stunned wonder of the revived dead.

"You forgive me?" he whispered.

"If that's what you want," Elros said, with some awkwardness. "Yes, I forgive you."

Erilon buried his face in his shoulder and sobbed brokenly.

.~.~.~.~.

It was not, however, then that Erilon first betrayed his marriage vows. That did not happen until Elros invited him and Aiwerin to stay with him at his villa over the Erukyermë of the following spring. They were given separate rooms. Erilon had not anticipated the event beforehand, but, when it came to the point, there was not even any need for a signal to pass between them. It was simply the most and only natural thing in the world to creep into Elros' room in the dreamy small hours, when the structures of the day are seen to have no purpose. Elros was waiting for him.

When, stricken with morning repentance, he tried to apologise to Aiwerin, she laughed at him.

"I knew this would happen, if you did not, my fine husband! Did you think I wanted to strip you of half your nature?"

Elros and Aiwerin never forgave each other, however; Erilon was always afraid to leave them alone. Each had betrayed the deepest and strongest sensibilities of the other.

It may seem that the circumstances of Erilon's union with Aiwerin were not propitious for a happy marriage, but to imagine so would be to underestimate the lady's genius for making the world be as she would have it be. She had not married Erilon to make either of them unhappy; therefore they would not be unhappy! And indeed they settled well enough into their strange _ménage_, Erilon lying with Elros whenever one of the great festivals called them to Armenelos. It was understood that they were never to do it in the Andustar.

Erilon had plenty to fill his days at home, cultivating the smallholding that surrounded his house there, rediscovering the love of agriculture that ran in his family. His other passion, for woods, also found fulfilment: the valley of the cherry trees was a perpetual delight to him.

And then there was Galathil, who visited every few years or so. Erilon always looked forward to his coming. They had never gone in for emotional discussion, but the equality of suffering between them had bred an easy, consoling companionship. Their shared memories of Ossiriand would always bind them together.

Perhaps there was some part of Erilon that could come alive only on his stolen nights with Elros; but the greater body of the spiritual organism, surely, found fulfilment in the gentler rhythm of life in the Andustar. If he needed any final proof that this was his real life, it came when his newborn son was laid in his arms. He felt that he recognised himself in the tiny crumpled face. Yes, the touselled hair was golden and the eyes were the colour of sky, but their expression of puzzled innocence called to his soul.

After withstanding every tragedy that the bloody First Age could throw at it, the line of Beleth had survived the final obstacle of Erilon's homosexuality. Meldir and Gladhwen had not died in vain; something of the lovely Niphredil endured despite the devouring sea; the towering legacy of Berendis' blood had passed safely to another generation. And if the dead of Men linger in Mandos before they leave the Circles of the World, to see what their children make of life, surely Bereth was happy.

**.~.~.~.~.**

**Author's Notes:**

Eluwen is an OC, as is Edhellin, although Galathil must of course have been married. I made her a Nando because her daughter is described in 'The History of Middle-earth' as 'of Ossiriand', and it seemed a good explanation for the family's presence there.

According to 'The History of Middle-earth', Círdan was related to Thingol and Olwë, and thus to Galathil, who is said in 'Unfinished Tales' to have been their great-nephew.

In the published 'Silmarillion', Nimloth is killed in the Second Kinslaying, but I cannot find any evidence that Tolkien ever made such a statement. In fact, he wrote in 1951 or 1952 that Dior's wife 'escaped with Elwing' to the Havens of Sirion by way of Ossiriand. Christopher Tolkien appears to have inserted the mention of her death to tie up a loose end. I have invented an alternative end for her.

If Númenor were a starfish, the Forostar would be the northern arm.


	5. Chapter 5

Vardamir gave Hiril a present at breakfast, which seemed surprising, for he had only seen her once or twice before his cutting himself off from the family, when her presence had filled him with the same resentful bafflement that she inspired in the rest of the family. Nonetheless, he had not only noted that it was her birthday but had gone out to buy her a gift in Armenelos on the previous evening. This was not entirely uncharacteristic. Vardamir's sense of propriety, which, warped as it was, he clung to like a child its favourite toy, would never have allowed him to ignore the birthday of a sister-in-law staying beneath the same roof as himself, whatever his personal feelings towards her.

The present was a necklace of jet-black star sapphires, created by Noldorin craftsmen in Tol Eressëa. It was obviously frighteningly valuable. Hiril loved it.

"Oh, Vardamir," she gabbled incoherently, watching the light wink off the stones in her hands. "It's _so beautiful_. Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"Yes," said Tindómiel sweetly, "it's at times like this that you remember why you married my brother, isn't it?"

Hiril's face collapsed. She did not reply, but her great brown eyes slowly filled with tears. Erelos waited for Manwendil to spring to her defence.

He waited for several moments. Eventually, it became apparent that he would have to do it himself. He cleared his throat:

"Ahem! You know, cousin, your words do not seem entirely - um, er… appropriate. I wonder if - Still, I'm sure it was all a misunderstanding!"

Erelos floundered to a halt, frustrated by the watching silence of his relations. None of them seemed prepared to join him in his stand. Only Erilon gave him an encouraging look. Elros looked as if he found the entire spectacle highly amusing.

Tindómiel did not look up from the spirited attack that she was mounting on a defenceless hard-boiled egg.

.~.~.~.~.

After breakfast, Vardamir retired into the library and locked the door against Erelos, who decided to go for a walk in the garden. It was grey and bitterly cold, but there was a limited number of things to do indoors.

He was horrified to find Hiril standing by the ornamental lake, especially when she looked pleased to see him. This was never a good sign.

Good manners dictated that he walk around the lake to greet her: "Good afternoon, cousin."

"Oh, is it afternoon?"

"I think it almost always is by the time they finish breakfast in this house."

"How like them!"

Erelos shrugged vaguely.

"They're all beasts, you know," Hiril said in a tone of quiet venom. "Monsters. They may look like a human family, but - That Tindómiel!"

"Mmmm, really?"

"Thank you for standing up for me in there. I truly appreciate it."

She had moved closer to Erelos, ensuring that he had a very clear view of her moist eyes, so like those of an emotional spaniel. He could have reached out and touched her, as she clearly wished.

"You and your father," she murmured, "you're different. I knew from the moment I first saw you. You care about ordinary human things, like honour and love. You don't deceive others or mock them for fun."

"I certainly hope not…"

"You can't imagine how it is for me, being trapped among them! You can always go back to your estate!"

"Er… Yes. It's true. Ah - would you like a handkerchief?"

"Handkerchief!" Hiril sobbed, falling heavily into his arms. "It's - not your handkerchief I want - from you, Erelos!"

Horrified, not least by the fact that the ornamental lake was in full view of the villa, he gently forced her to sit down on a log and accept his handkerchief.

"Try to calm down," he said. "You'll feel better in a minute. I know these family reunions can be quite stressful."

"But," she wailed dolefully, "I love you!"

"Of course you don't love me. You only see me for one week every year. You love an image of me that has taken shape in your head."

"Is it that you do not desire me?"

"No! No, of course not," Erelos said hastily, although he felt anything but desire for the soggy object before him. "What do you want of me? What good can I do you, a married woman? It would be a terrible mistake for me to entangle myself in your life; surely you see that. I'm going in, anyway," he added, irritated by her continued silence. "Good day!"

As he walked back to the house, aware of her eyes on his back, half-resentful, half-pleading still, he thought he saw a shape move away from the library window. He hesitated for a moment before walking right up to it. Whoever it was, he thought, the best thing was first to ascertain whether they had seen the incident by the lake, then, if necessary, offer some kind of explanation, now, immediately, before they could tell Manwendil. If by some malevolent stroke of fortune Manwendil himself should be in there, waiting, well - in that case, it would be best to get the inevitable confrontation over with quickly.

This fear at least was laid to rest when Erelos looked through the long window to see only Vardamir sitting by a blazing fire, reading or pretending to read; he had forgotten in the confusion into which Hiril's advances had thrown him that his former friend was likely to be there still. He rapped the glass pane lightly. Vardamir got up and opened the window for him.

"So you've joined the great game of bed-hopping," he said as the other entered. "Let's see, who else are you f******? My sister? Yours?"

"!"

"That was meant to be a joke. I can see that poor girl is besotted with you. You can hardly be to blame if she must throw herself over you."

"Let's sit down," Erelos said.

They sat, opposite each other. The action gave Erelos a pang; he was reminded of all the hours that he and his cousin had spent sitting in that room together, beginning as teacher and pupil when Vardamir had been an earnest child who hated to be touched almost as much as he feared being laughed at.

Tindómiel had once confided in Erelos her theory that it was this dislike of being touched, as much as Vardamir's possessive love for his mother, that lay at the root of his hostility towards Elros. Erelos could see her point. Elros was an immensely tactile individual, as his many lovers knew well. But it was not only sexual contacts that he desired and needed. He simply loved hugging people. It was to him the most natural and beautiful token of affection to kiss and embrace his children in public. Whether or not he really loved them, none of the four escaped these attentions.

Vardamir hated it more and more as he grew older. How often had Erelos seen him shudder away, his brittle adolescent pride bruised, when his father flung an arm around his shoulder before the entire Council of the Sceptre!

Now Erelos searched his cousin's face for signs of hope. He thought he had heard one in Vardamir's more human tone of voice.

"Why won't you talk to me?" he ventured.

"Now you're trying to make me into the guilty one! You deceived me, did you not?"

"I thought you knew! We all thought you knew!"

"How could I have done?"

"Even if I had known you did not, I couldn't have told you. It was not a secret that was mine to break."

Vardamir said nothing, staring into the fire.

Erelos reached out and, cautiously, put a hand on the other's shoulder.

"Nólimon," he said softly, "it's impossible to talk here. There are too many distractions. The place itself is a distraction."

"You're right there!"

"But I must talk to you, really talk. I need your advice, I'm writing another book… So will you spend the New Year with us?"

"You must be joking!"

"Nimfileg and her family will be there. And Galathil from Tol Eressëa."

"Quite the family party."

"You used to enjoy staying with us so much."

"That was when I imagined that that place at least was untainted. I suggest you go now."

Erelos waited for a moment or two to see if Vardamir would say anything else, then he did go, pausing at the door to look back at his cousin.

"Please think about it," he whispered.

When he had gone, Vardamir returned his attention to the slim volume that he had held in his hands all the time: Erelos' latest book.

Presently Erilon came into the room, looking for his son. At the sight of Vardamir, he froze. It smote him to the heart to see him sitting there, looking so terribly like Elros.

Vardamir looked up at him, then again at the book.

Erilon would have fled on the spot, if it had not occurred to him that he had been given a chance to help Erelos. Instead, he came in and stood in front of the fire.

"I understand why you are angry with me," he said, "but why do you have to take it out on my son?"

Vardamir turned over a page.

"You are unreasonable. You appear to expect of him what he could not have done without betraying his own father. You don't even know how it is between your father and I!" Erilon burst out with sudden passion. "Do you imagine that we were lovers before your mother became - as she is? All these years? It wasn't like that. We did lie together when we were young, but he broke it off when he met Halmiel. After that - you must believe me - we did nothing until-"

"Do you think I want to know all the sordid details?"

"No," Erilon said humbly, "of course not. I only want to make you look kindly on my son."

"Well," Vardamir snapped, "you are damaging his cause with your bleating. I desire you to go away."

Miserable, Erilon obeyed.

.~.~.~.~.

Upstairs, Hiril sat in front of the dressing-table in her room, trying on Vardamir's necklace of star sapphires. She peered into the mirror, trying to rekindle the joy that the gift had brought her at breakfast, but the sight of the dark stones against her pink neck could not efface Tindómiel's cruel words that still rang in her ears. Erelos' rejection she could not bear to think of.

Slowly, a mist of tears obscured the brown eyes that gazed dolefully at her out of the mirror. Her hair was brown too. She bore some vague, passing resemblance to Halmiel and Tindómiel, for she was also of Halethian descent. Her so upwardly mobile and self-consciously respectable parents had first made their fortune from salt mining in the Orrostar; but this was not mentioned. Hiril had been educated by the best tutors to speak well and sing passably in the most exclusive circles.

By the time she was sixteen, Hiril's family had risen so high that they actually shared mutual friends with the sons of Elros. It was now her mother's dream - her dreams had grown with the years - that Hiril should marry Manwendil or Atanalcar (or, failing them, Amandil or Aulendil or Nolondil). Hiril's father had pretended to laugh at such nonsense. But he too had been delighted when Hiril had finally met Manwendil at a musical evening hosted by one of the mutual friends.

Although Manwendil was not beautiful in himself, his elvish blood had put about him the sort of glow that might easily sweep away a young and impressionable girl. Hiril was so swept. It is less clear why Manwendil was, however ephemerally, attracted to Hiril, unless he simply felt ready for a change in his bachelor way of life. Hiril was in his sight at every social function - her parents made sure of that. It is also possible that he was attracted by the fleeting similarity between her and his mother.

So Hiril at seventeen was married to Manwendil at 267. They discovered almost immediately that they did not really love each other; but it was almost in his family as a whole that Hiril was most disappointed. They simply did not conform to what she had been brought up to think of as the highest standards. There was Manwendil's father, the serial adulterer; his sister-in-law, the feminist and free-thinker; and, worst of all, his sister, who was probably the most unfeminine woman whom Hiril had ever met. Was this the greatest family in the land?

And then there came her first Eruhantalë with the family. And with the Eruhantalë came Erelos.

The first sight of Erelos had been to Hiril like a drought of cool and soothing water. He was everything that was noble and gentle and respectable; and he too bore the glow of elvish blood. But what was the point of thinking about that? Hiril collapsed onto the bed, biting her pillow to choke her convulsive sobs. He did not want her. Nobody loved her; nobody cared for her. Her thin body shook with agony for the desert loneliness of her life, for her cold husband, for her treacherous parents, for her daughter who was one of _them_…

.~.~.~.~.

The pillow was not enough to hide the sound of Hiril's misery from Erelos when, making for his father's room, he passed between those that Tindómiel had allocated to her and Manwendil, which faced each other across a corridor. It was long since they had shared a bedchamber.

Erelos paused for a moment at the muffled choking noise, frozen with horror, then hurried away to the top of the stairs, where his flight was arrested again by the sight of Vardamir coming out of the library. He went into the parlour, which left the library vacant. Erelos was quick to install himself. Choosing one of the comfortable chairs, he picked up a book at random and tried to read, but he could not concentrate for what he had heard.

"Is it really my fault?" he said aloud, then, in exasperation: "Oh! Women!"

This ungallant remark was perhaps justified by the history of Erelos' relationship with the gentler sex, which was littered with the corpses of mistaken romances. These relationships would begin well enough, with Erelos smitten by desire for a comely woman, or, more usually, with a woman maternally attracted by Erelos' air of needing to be looked after. Certain ladies were strongly affected by the air of ineffectual well-meaning that accompanied his every word and deed.

These were no mere flirtations; several of these women allowed Erelos to sleep with them. Marriage would be talked about. Erelos might introduce his potential spouse to his parents and sister, if she was not already one of his sister's friends, as she often was.

Then something would go wrong. It was hard to say what. Erelos supposed he deserved all the unpleasant names that had been attached to him by his former mistresses; he must really be incurably lazy or arrogant or afraid of commitment, although he was totally unaware of it and had no idea how to improve. What was indubitable was that, sooner or later, each woman began to find Erelos' leisurely cogitation and vague behaviour annoying and said so. Erelos naturally responded by becoming vaguer and slower. Meanwhile, he would begin to harbour confused misgivings about the woman. He still loved her - but he no longer felt sure of her rightness.

The affair would end in a baffling tangle of nauseated remorse. Erelos would be left to his own doubts, tormented by a muddled fear that he was to blame.

He had had consistently straightforward and affectionate relations with only two women, not including his mother, with whom his relationship had been greatly troubled despite his love for her. One was his sister, Nimfileg. She was one of those rare and infuriating creatures who excel in almost every field of human endeavour, the perfect fruit of Aiwerin's intentions. It was to bring forth a being like Nimfileg that Aiwerin had married her will to Erilon's beauty and lineage. Erelos had not been satisfactory; and so, eight years later, Nimfileg had come.

Aiwerin had hired a battalion of tutors and music teachers for Erelos, with uneven results. He was scholarly by nature, but at a very early stage he began to show a special interest amounting to a monomania in an area for which his mother could not forgive him. In her almost fanatical striving towards the future, she had come to equate Sindarin with the Middle-earth and the Middle-earth with the past. Quenya, accordingly, became a symbol of the future. Nimfileg could speak Quenya fluently, and even sing it to her own accompaniment on the harp, by the age of nine. (Erelos was not musical.)

It was because Nimfileg with her golden hair and shining blue eyes was nothing other than a radiant incarnation of the future that forward-thinkers of every description had always gathered around her like bees drawn to a queen of flowers. Ernis had been discovered by Nimfileg at the age of nineteen, and their friendship had lasted until her final illness, through which Nimfileg helped Vardamir to nurse her.

It goes without saying that Nimfileg in youth had been constantly surrounded by a crowd of male admirers, captivated by her words and her thoughts and her singing and her marvellous prowess in the hunting field. But the man she had finally married at forty-two had not been one of these. He had been a poet on whom Nimfileg had set her sights from his verse before she had even had the good fortune to meet him. The couple had moved to the Forostar and carved out a homestead for themselves from a patch of virgin wilderness. They now had five children, the youngest of whom had been born as a surprise bonus only twelve years before the time of our story. All of them were golden-haired and sapphire-eyed.

Since her marriage, Nimfileg no longer attended the Eruhantalë.

The strangest thing was the purity of Erelos' love for his sister. She was the other half - the competent half - of his soul. He could not remember ever feeling jealous of her.

The other woman with whom he had always got on well was his fifty-two-year-old illegitimate daughter, whom he had named Eril after a remote ancestor, the daughter of Beleth and mother of Berelas. Eril was not like the rest of the family. For one thing, she was very dark-skinned. In her the tawny, hawk-faced legacy of Berendis had resurfaced after slumbering for five generations, along with Berendis' strength. She was not like Aiwerin and Nimfileg: brilliant and, although Erelos did not like to think it, just a little heartless. She was simply tough. Life could not overthrow her. Erelos admired and loved her tremendously.

Eril was also an additional and, Erelos had decided with some relief, final complication in her father's love-life. She had loved the estate in the Andustar since she was a child, had left her mother's house to work there at the age of twenty-three. To disinherit her would be monstrous. Of course, Erelos could make a will in her favour, but what if a legitimate child of his tried to dispute it? Erelos loved Eril. Eril loved the farm. Eril must have the farm. It was best to stop thinking of marriage.


	6. Chapter 6

_'Prince, n'enquerez de sepmaine_

_Ou elles sont, ne de cest an,_

_Que ce reffrain ne vous remaine:_

_Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?'_

François Villon, _'Ballade des Dames du temps jadis'_

"Wake up, Lady Tindómiel! Lady! It's morning!"

With a painful effort, Tindómiel forced her eyes open. It was too hard to keep both lids in that position, so she allowed one to fall shut, squinting wrathfully at the nervous face of Ethuil with the other.

"Wossat?" she groaned.

"My lady has overslept."

The words scratched at the tender surface of Tindómiel's newly-awoken brain. She longed for the girl to shut up and leave her alone.

"So what? I always do."

"Not for so long, Lady Tindómiel."

Her mistress heaved herself out of bed and tottered, jerkily, towards the window. This morning there was not a cloud in the sky. The position of the sun told her that it must be almost the eleventh hour.

"Has breakfast been served?"

"Not yet."

"But I don't have time for my bath, do I?"

Ethuil looked uncomfortable.

"Damn!" Tindómiel spat. "Why didn't you wake me earlier?"

Tindómiel started every day with a hot bath. She never felt human until she had indulged in a refreshing soak. Today, however, she could only wash her hands and face before putting a clean dress over her sweaty body.

Another disappointment also fell upon her head. Her monthly bleeding should have come at about this time of the month, but there was no sign of it when she relieved herself, any more than there had been the month before or the month before that. This should not have mattered; it was not as if she had not long ago made her peace with the idea of childlessness. But it did matter.

The consequence of all this was that she was short-tempered at breakfast, snapping at poor little Aglarin and making him spill his milk on the table-cloth, which infuriated her even more:

"Someone will have to clean that, you know! Anyone would think you'd been brought up in a pig-sty!"

.~.~.~.~.

That afternoon, Elros went to see Halmiel again. Finding that it was one of her good days, he invited her to supper.

Tindómiel was furious when he told her. How dare he do such a thing without giving her time to prepare herself and the others? But the deed was done and could not be undone. She went to tell Gilbor to lay two extra places at the table - one for Elulin, Halmiel's most devoted maid, who went everywhere with her.

They were all seated when the two women entered. The queen paused for a moment in the doorway, looking around in apparent confusion. Vardamir sprang from his chair and went to her, to kiss her hand and then her cheek. She beamed at him devotedly as he escorted her to her seat.

"Hello, Grandmother," Íriel chirped as she sat down. "Grandmother, you've got a new grandson. His name is Aglarin. Isn't it fun?"

Halmiel blinked, puzzled, at Aglarin, who seemed to shrink under the scrutiny of all the adults around the table.

"Darling," Elros said softly, "I told you about Aglarin. Don't you remember?"

Halmiel still looked bemused.

"He's mine, Mother," Atanalcar said cheerfully. "I begot him on the wrong side of the blanket."

"I see," Halmiel murmured. She looked, Tindómiel thought, exhausted by this information, as if daunted by the labour that would be required to place it in the context of her existing knowledge of her family.

She turned to the boy.

"I'm sorry I forgot you, child. My memory isn't what it was."

"Please don't worry about it, er - Grandmother."

Aglarin's other grandmother had obviously taught him beautiful manners.

On the whole, the meal went well. Halmiel never forgot anyone's name (although at one point she did wonder when her long-dead father would pay her a visit); Elros and Vardamir, for her sake, conversed with great civility. Only Erelos noticed that his father was even less animated than usual, or that his lustrous eyes kept wandering from his food to the queen's lined face.

Erilon hated Halmiel. He did not want to; this hatred, the only one that he had ever felt, troubled and grieved him, for he felt it to be alien to his nature. He had never truly hated Elros' other women, not even Aiwerin§s before she had seduced him. She had fascinated and confused him, rather. And yet his hostility towards Halmiel was ineradicable.

Erilon had first heard of Elros' betrothal from Elros himself, who had ridden out to the Andustar with only two servants to tell him, a week after his memorable night with Halmiel. He felt he owed this at least to the devotion that Erilon had accorded him for twenty-seven years.

He instructed the maid who opened the door to him to tell her master that he wished to speak to him alone. He had not finished speaking to her, however, when Erilon himself came into the room. The expression of surprise and delight that immediately lit up his face lived with Elros for the rest of his life.

Erilon led his guest into his study. There, bluntly, feeling that it was best to get the thing over with quickly, Elros told him that he had fallen in love with Halmiel and was going to marry her.

"I thought I should come myself," he said. "I intend to be faithful to her."

Erilon sat very still, staring down at the table before him. In a muted voice, he offered Elros his congratulations. Elros said he would not stay the night. As he closed the door behind him, he looked over his shoulder to see Erilon still sitting in the same position, like a beautiful, grieving statue.

Even then he did not begin to hate Halmiel. No, that black flower did not bloom until he first saw her, which was at the time of the Eruhantalë, nearly two years later, when she and Elros were newlyweds. They welcomed him to the house as a couple.

That evening, walking alone in the dark garden, Erilon saw a light coming from the library window. An irresistible curiosity led him to move a little closer. Elros and Halmiel were standing holding each other in the middle of the room, kissing. Halmiel's back was turned to the window. Erilon could only see part of Elros' intent face.

Suddenly his wife pushed him away, saying something with a laugh, and half turned so that Erilon saw her amused face. He was, however, more interested in Elros' expression. It was one that he knew well: a similar look of desire had often been turned on him. And yet there was some difference, some extra tenderness. He realised with a sick sensation that it must be love.

At that moment, Halmiel took Elros' hands and placed them on her small breasts. Erilon fled into the darkness. He did not sleep that night, but kept Aiwerin awake with his uncharacteristic restlessness.

In the morning he happened to find himself alone with Halmiel in the breakfast room.

"I hope you slept well," she said to him.

"Very well, thank you."

"I've been looking out for a chance to speak with you properly."

"I see," Erilon said wearily. Since her rich brown eyes were looking at him expectantly, he added, "I suppose Elros has told you all about me."

"He has told me all he can. But, of course, I don't know your side of the story." She looked at him for a moment as if waiting for a reply, then continued speaking: "I hope we can be friends."

"I'm sorry," he said, "but I don't think we can, actually."

She did not try to dissuade him.

And although he must have seen her thousands of times over the next three hundred years, Erilon never again exchanged one word of significance with Halmiel. It was not that he was unaware of her many good qualities. Every year they stood out more clearly before his tormented gaze. But the black petals had opened, and their evil fragrance wafted ceaselessly through his gentle soul. He thought and hoped that she understood and forgave him; for the look in her eyes when she spoke to him was kind.

Suddenly, Halmiel looked up at Vardamir, who sat opposite her, and said, a frown creasing her already heavily lined brow:

"But where is dear Ernis? Is she not well?"

The effect on the company was instantaneous and dramatic. All conversation was stilled; Erilon turned deathly pale; Erelos flinched at the look on Vardamir's face. His former friend, apparently unable to reply, gripped his knife until his knuckles were white.

Under the circumstances, Tindómiel thought, Elros should have said something. Failing that, there was always Elulin, who was after all handsomely paid to deal with these situations. Since neither of these showed any sign of acting appropriately, Tindómiel steeled herself to the inevitable.

"No, Mother," she said, "Ernis passed away some years ago. Don't you remember?"

The expression that crossed Halmiel's face this time was not one of painful weariness, but of shocked concern. She immediately began to condole with Vardamir.

The meal ended soon afterwards. When she had seen her mother and Elulin off, Tindómiel put on her cloak and went for a walk in the garden to see if she could shake off her uncomfortable mood, which was not so much irritable as dislocated, as if her skin were no longer her own. The walk was not a success. It was not raining, but it was very cold.

By the ornamental lake Tindómiel encountered Íriel, who seemed as disconsolate as her aunt. She asked her whether she had seen Aglarin: "I don't know where he's gone! I've looked _everywhere_!"

"Foolish child! How should I know or care? He won't be out in this weather, if he's sensible; I suggest you go inside before you catch a chill."

Íriel raised wide dark eyes of insolence and said, solemnly but with a tiny ray of a smile playing about her rosy lips, "So are you not sensible, Aunt Tindómiel?"

Then she fled, giggling, back to the house, leaving Tindómiel to fume and presently choose to return through the library, as Erelos had done the day before. She too found Vardamir in the chair by the fire, not reading but slumped in a position of the utmost despair, clutching his head with both hands, yet perfectly silent and still.

"Well!" Tindómiel ejaculated, closing the window behind her. "What's the matter with you?"

Vardamir lifted his head. His eyes were dry. When he spoke, he did not respond to his sister's slightly harsh tone. It was almost as if he were talking to himself.

"She's deteriorated," he said. "She's much worse than when I last saw her."

At this moment, Íriel ran into the room, giggling, and out into the garden. Vardamir and Tindómiel, who had found his utterance infuriating, ignored this phenomenon.

"Is that so?" Tindómiel returned. "Well, let me tell you something. This is what passes for a good day now! Even I don't see the worst of it. I'm not there when she sees hallucinations and refuses to put on new clothes or eat or stir out of her bedroom. Her nurses have to deal with that. Those women are saints! But _you _- She went that way."

These last words were addressed to Aglarin, who had entered the room and stood undetermined. When he had followed Íriel into the garden, Tindómiel resumed her tirade:

"_You _think you're so righteous, washing your hands of us all. You can enjoy your moral superiority while the rest of us have to watch your mother fall apart. Ha! I call that bloody convenient for you!"

"What do you mean?"

"Isn't it obvious? You're a coward as well as a prig. You can't bear to watch her die - well, neither can I! But you've run away and left me alone. You expect me to see to it that she's comfortable and happy, alone. And then there's Father, I have to comfort him. But you forget that I also have to carry out the duties of a queen! And I can't do it all! Oh, she could, I know she could. She was like a Valië. But I - don't have - the strength…"

Here Tindómiel fell silent, choked by sobs. Vardamir made a slight motion of invitation and she collapsed on to the arm of his chair, throwing her arms around his neck. Her tears trickled on to his shoulder.

"You're lucky she recognised you at all," she said at last. "She forgets everyone's face now. Except Father's. When she fails to recognise him, that will be the end. It's love for him that's keeping her alive."

Vardamir kissed her.

"My poor Dómi!"

"Oh, Nólimon, Nólimon…"

"I never meant to desert you."

"You cut yourself off from the whole family."

"It was necessary. My love for my wife made it necessary. My honour demanded it."

"So why have you come back now?"

"I couldn't bear to keep away from her."

"Was it something to do with the baby?"

"Yes, I think so. I couldn't cut her off from her first great-grandchild."

"It wasn't that you had forgiven Father?"

Vardamir laughed bitterly.

"I wish you'd try to understand him, Nólimon. I won't use the word _forgive_. Understanding would be a place to start."

"His actions are beyond understanding."

Releasing her brother with a final squeeze, Tindómiel extracted a handkerchief from her sleeve and began dabbing at her face.

"No, darling, just try to put yourself in his place. He has been given apparently endless youth and vigour, and yet he is chained to a woman whom he loves dearly, but who has long been incapable of satisfying his natural desires. Imagine the frustration he must feel!"

"I can imagine it very easily, but he should learn to hold his lust in check, as I have done."

"You don't mean - these seven years… ?"

"I have lain with only one woman in my life."

Tindómiel thought of the long years of Ernis' first marriage.

"I don't believe you!"

"It is true. And by the way, Tindómiel, do not suppose that I have no knowledge of the dying. I supported my wife through sufferings that I think even you would find it hard to imagine."

"Oh, my poor darling, I know…"

Tindómiel, who had risen and was adjusting her dress, bent to kiss Vardamir.

Here Erilon entered the room. Vardamir stiffened visibly with rage at the sight. Erilon nodded anxiously at Tindómiel, looking half ready to flee.

"I hope I'm not interrupting a private conversation," he said. "I only wanted to look something up - perhaps I should come back later."

"No, no," Tindómiel protested, "we were just going. Come on, Vardamir."

He came.

Outside, in the passage, they looked at each other shyly, as if their newly restored intimacy had departed as swiftly as it had come. Tindómiel, anxious to recover it, asked Vardamir what his plans for the evening were.

"I don't have any," he said.

"Well, shall we go and see if there's anyone in the parlour? If not, we could sit there and have a chat."

"Yes, why not?"

The children passed them in the hall. Tindómiel saw Aglarin looking at her rather strangely. She hoped her face was not too blotchy.

The parlour was not empty, as they could hear through the door, when they approached it. A woman was laughing within.

Tindómiel began, "Let's try the-"

"Ssssh!"

A man was speaking on the other side of the door. The words were muffled, but the voice was clearly Elros'.

A struggle ensued as Tindómiel attempted, silently, to prevent Vardamir from opening the door. Being far stronger, he won.

Ivanneth was standing in the centre of the room. Elros stood behind her, caressing her belly. This tableau was broken up when Vardamir burst in, followed by his sister, and everyone began to shout, except Elros, who remained silent, with a smile playing about his lips.

Vardamir said, "How dare you - your _grandson's wife_-"

Tindómiel said, "For goodness' sake, shut up, slow down!"

Ivanneth screamed, shrilly, "It was the baby! He was feeling the baby move! What kind of a dirty mind… ?"

Silence reigned for a moment or two.

"The baby?" Vardamir said in a small voice.

Elros grinned cheekily at him.

"I think a good rule to follow at moments like this is 'look before you leap', my child."

"As if you've ever done so in your whole life!" Tindómiel snapped, furious with all of them, including Ivanneth, who, ignorant of the tangled history of the family with whom she had innocently allied herself, was regarding Vardamir with horror.

.~.~.~.~.

As he told Erilon, Elros married Halmiel with the intention of being faithful to her, an intention that he followed for some two hundred years. It was not that he was never tempted; his path was strewn with attractive temptations of both sexes; but the intensity of his love enabled him to find satisfaction in the embraces of his wife, who had healthy carnal appetites of her own, and to keep faith with her. _He was faithful to her._

Must that not count for something?

The first cloud on their happiness came when it became apparent that, while Halmiel was ageing very slowly, Elros was not. He was apparently stuck with the appearance and physique of a youth on the threshold of manhood. At first this made little difference to them, but, as Halmiel's youth and stamina waned, she began to want to make love less often. At last, when her hair was almost all grey, she gently requested that the physical side of their relationship cease. It would never have occurred to him to go against her will. He saw that it had to be.

Still he was faithful to her, though it was living hell. For her sake, he tried to conceal what he suffered, retiring to his solitary chamber as cheerfully as if chastity were not alien to his nature. The very sight of women began to madden him. It seemed that he was surrounded by temptresses who shamelessly flaunted their charms before him - and yet he was not allowed to drag them off into a corner and strip off their infuriating clothing and rid himself of this everlasting ache of yearning.

Perhaps the woman who caused him most grief was his daughter-in-law Ernis. He had always desired her, from the first moment that he had seen her, when his marital bliss had still been whole. He believed - not that a word on the subject had ever passed between them - that she felt the same. It had never occurred to him to do anything about this; it was simply a fact of life, the occasion of some spasmodic and strangely wistful regret, a necessary sacrifice to his love for Halmiel. He allowed himself only some innocent flirting with Ernis, which he now ceased, because he could no longer bear it.

But then Halmiel's memory began to fail. They made a joke out of it at first. She, who had once run her household with such supreme smoothness, holding everything in her head, now had to ask Elros, or the servants, where she had left small objects.

As time passed, her deterioration progressed. She often forgot the names of acquaintances. The first time she mistook Tindómiel for some long-dead relative of her father's, Elros thought he would go mad with grief and rage at what was happening to them all. As it happened to be a few days before the Eruhantalë, he confided his misery to Erilon, in private, over a glass of wine. One thing led to another; Elros burst into tears and Erilon, trying to comfort him, succeeded in driving out one passion with another. All his imprisoned desire broke out. Erilon was supremely happy for about half an hour, until Elros began to weep again, lamenting that he had betrayed Halmiel.

In the morning, he did a stupid thing: he went to her and confessed everything and begged her forgiveness with tears. Of course she gave it, but he could see how the revelation pained her. He never made that mistake again.

For he did sin again. After the first slip, it seemed impossible to continue his tortured resistance. He slept with Erilon; he slept with pretty maidservants; he went back to his old games of seducing society ladies. Although he was discreet, as he did know how to be, and weakened as Halmiel's faculties now were, he nevertheless suspected that very little of all this escaped her. But they did not speak of the matter.

Elros rarely saw Vardamir and Ernis in these years. At some point, they stopped coming to the annual reunion, attendance at which had always been optional. In their absence, their sons usually did not come either, although Vardilmë came most years. The family gatherings were further diminished by the loss of Aiwerin, who had died in her bed at a ripe old age, her children and grandchildren gathered around her. "Don't grieve for me," she said to Erilon, who held her hand at the last. "I had everything I wanted."

From Vardilmë, mostly through Tindómiel, Elros got a vague impression that Vardamir and Ernis' disappearance was due to marital difficulties. He did not really care very much. He had his own troubles.

He saw Ernis for the last time in the December of the year 342. This was one of those occasional years in which the ever-faithful Erilon was the only guest to attend the reunion. On the fateful evening, a week or so after his departure, Elros and Tindómiel were sitting in the library. He was reading; she was doing some needlework. Suddenly, Gilbor announced the arrival of the Lady Ernis. Elros ordered her to be shown in.

As soon as she appeared in the doorway and their eyes met, Elros knew, with the understanding of one lost, sensual creature for another, what she had come for. Tindómiel must have realised too. However, neither of them mentioned this. They behaved just as if Ernis' were an ordinary visit, although her appearance was as surprising as her timing.

She was abnormally thin and obviously in poor health, periodically afflicted with violent coughing attacks, yet in some ways she looked younger and more energetic - if with a feverish energy - than when Elros had last seen her. There was still a large patch of grey in her dark hair, but her eyes glittered with an unaccustomed brightness, while her sallow cheeks were overlaid by a rosy flush. Her costume, too, was odd. Beneath her warm cloak, she wore a most gorgeous gown, scarlet and glittering with sequins, as if she had come for a feast.

The conversation was trivial and impersonal. They talked about the overcast weather; how fortunate it was that Ernis had not been caught in a rainstorm; architecture, especially that of the villa; Aiwerin's life and death; Elros' childhood; Ernis' health (she denied that there was anything seriously the matter with her); in short, anything but Vardamir.

Midnight was long gone; all the servants were in bed, but still Tindómiel kept the conversation flowing. This was her doomed, ritual attempt to remain loyal to the brother whom she had adored since before she could speak. And she made it bravely. She was determined not to leave them alone. If she could only tire them out with talking-!

But Ernis, despite her evident ill-health, seemed untiring, as if she were borne up by some inexhaustible well of spiritual strength. Tindómiel felt that she was caught in a nightmare. At the second hour, she made a fatal mistake. She yawned.

"My dear sister," Ernis said sympathetically, "how unpardonable of me to have kept you from your rest so long! You must be terribly tired. Why don't you go to bed?"

Tindómiel gave in; but she turned in the doorway and, looking back at her father and sister-in-law, spoke these words from her heart: "I hope the Valar forgive you, for _I never will_!"

Then she flitted away, and they heard the patter of her feet on the stairs. Elros bolted the door behind her. When he turned around, Ernis was standing there, so he took her in his arms and kissed her dry, burning cheek, because the sick smell emanating from her mouth disgusted him at the last moment.

Later, he spent much time trying to analyse his state of mind at this moment. He was not so perverted as to be attracted by Ernis' sickness. Rather, he felt a kind of anonymous drive to lose himself in another living body, any living body, escaping his troubles for a while.

And yet that was not the whole story. For, although he certainly did feel such an urge, there was also a sense in which the events of that night had everything to do with Ernis' identity as Ernis. They could not have happened with any other woman.

Elros had wanted Ernis for over 250 years; now she was offering herself to him. It was like the moment in a folktale when all the conditions for the prince's union with the princess have finally been fulfilled. Does he ever let the opportunity go?

Even so Elros felt what amounted to an obligation to get his coupling with his daughter-in-law over with. He did not feel that he was making a moral choice when they lay down together on the hearthrug. The thing was already done in the thoughts of both. They were only players in a predestined drama.

There were no tender caresses. Each of them wanted only to obliterate him- or herself, together with the other and all their particular anguish, in a few moments of nothingness. In this they were successful. The shades of Vardamir and Halmiel were temporarily banished. But afterwards, as often happened now, Elros felt drained and empty. They lay in silence for a moment, until Ernis broke into a coughing fit. Elros turned away from her and looked into the glowing embers of the fire, feeling their heat on his face, and for the first time, it occurred to him to wonder why she had come. He asked her.

She hesitated for a moment before replying, her voice very soft, but quite clear in the absolute silence of the deep night.

"I came because I wanted to know if it's true what the peasants say about you."

"What do you mean? What do the peasants say about me?"

"They say your touch heals. It's superstitious, I know, but the fear of death is stronger than mere reason."

"Ernis, what is wrong with you?" Elros said slowly.

"The healers say they aren't sure, but I am. I can feel it in my bones. Consumption."

At the dread word, Elros moved from a horizontal position to a sitting one with no obvious intervening stage. He stared down at her in horror.

"YOU DON'T MEAN-?"

"Oh, don't worry. Nothing will happen to you. You are never ill, are you? Our half-elven prince, always radiant with health at any season of the year. You don't even catch colds!"

"I used to, when I was a child," Elros said vaguely, his mind numbed by shock. Then, hit by a renewed sense of the horror of the situation, he cried out,

"I can't believe you could do this! I wouldn't have," he added bitterly. "I know what I am, but I would never have done this."

Ernis ignored these utterances entirely, staring at the ceiling.

"Vardamir fusses over me like a hen," she said. "He means well, but it was driving me mad. And then I thought of you. I thought, _I can't die without having had him!_"

"And that's your excuse, is it?"

"Oh no. I have no _excuse_. But you might have some pity on me, as on one doomed to die." Ernis raised herself on one elbow and looked up at him with an expression of indescribable intensity. "I thought you might give me some of your health and vitality - you who are forever young!"

Horrified by these last words, which sounded like a curse in their yearning contempt, Elros sprang to his feet, pulled on his clothes and made for bed, without exchanging another word with Ernis or looking at her again. He was quite unable to sleep, but deliberately remained in bed until the eleventh hour, by which time she had gone. Tindómiel made no reference to her at breakfast.

Ernis had returned to Vardamir at their house in Armenelos, whither they had come to seek medical advice. Although it was perfectly obvious to him where she had been and why, he did not reproach her. When it had become clear that she did indeed have consumption and was dying of it, he nursed her devotedly to the end, which came quickly. Despite the efforts of the most skilful healers in the land, the disease proceeded swiftly in her. She was dead within a year of her visit to Elros.

During those last few months Nimfileg, as Ernis' oldest and closest friend, moved in to share Vardamir's ordeal. She was a person of whom he had hitherto taken little notice. Although, of course, he had known her all his life, she had always been as it were on the outskirts. Now they were thrown together as if alone on a desert island, for no-one suffered more at Ernis' suffering, unless it were poor Vardilmë, who was incapable of being a true support or comforter to her father. The three boys (as Vardamir called them; in fact, the youngest was over a hundred) had their own lives and futures and marriages to distract them.

So it was that a strange intimacy grew up between Vardamir and Nimfileg. Towards the end, one of them was almost always at Ernis' side during the day, and they would grip hands as they relieved each other. At night, since neither of them could sleep until driven to it by exhaustion, they would sit together in the room adjoining the sufferer's, drinking wine and talking in whispers of many things. The restrained Vardamir told Nimfileg things that he would never have anticipated in saner times. They talked about Ernis; they reminisced about the past.

One night, Nimfileg said, _à propos _of some comment that he could never afterwards remember, half-laughing with the terrible elation that sometimes comes at such times, "Of course, you know our fathers have been lovers for years!"

He had not known. He had not even suspected, though Nimfileg seemed to genuinely believe that it was common knowledge in the family. She was surprised and horrified when she realised her mistake.

But Vardamir did not allow himself to suffer much from this at that time. It was as if he took the awful matter and thrust it into a corner of his mind, to be examined in the unimaginable future, when there should be no more Ernis.

A few weeks later, he was alone at her bedside in the middle of the night: Nimfileg was asleep and her nurse had gone to snatch some food. He thought she was asleep, until she suddenly opened her eyes and whispered his name.

He gave her his hand and sat looking down at her, as Elros had done the previous year. She was no longer what she had been even then. Her face was haggard almost beyond recognition, her body wasted, her hair more than half grey. The stench of her mortal sickness hung in a cloud around the bed. Soon she would contort in agony as she coughed blood into a basin.

"Vardamir," she murmured, "it won't be long now, will it?"

Vardamir's throat was too constricted for him to reply.

"Vardamir, you know I lay with Elros that night, don't you?"

"Yes, my love. It doesn't matter."

"Do you forgive me?"

"Oh, Ernis! With all my heart, with all that I am!"

"Perhaps this is all for the best," she mused, her eyes sparkling with a touch of the mischief that she had shown in the old days. "I wouldn't have made a very good queen."

At this, Vardamir's calm broke and he threw himself on his knees by the bed, pressing her hot, skeletal hand to his lips and entreating her with tears and prayers not to leave him alone. He did not realise until the nurse entered the room that her spirit had slipped away already.

The next day, because one had to occupy oneself somehow, even after the death of all hope, he sat down in his study and wrote two letters, one to Erelos and one to his father. The wording of both was curt and to the point; in both he began by announcing the death of his wife. In the first, he wrote that he had decided to terminate his association with his cousin, as he had discovered from Nimfileg what Erelos had concealed from him for so many years. Vardamir would be grateful if Erelos did not reply to this letter.

He sent a similar message to Elros, except that he did not trouble to offer an explanation for his action, merely stating that, as far as he was concerned, Elros was no longer his father, and he no longer wished to be connected in any way with him or any of his relations.

Elros accepted this in silence. Erelos, on the other hand, rode over to Vardamir's house as soon as he received the dreadful letter, eager to exonerate himself and of course to comfort his friend. He was turned away at the door. Over the next year, he sent dozens of pleading letters, all of which Vardamir ignored, just as he ignored the invitations to the annual reunion that Tindómiel sent him every autumn.

Until the seventh year.

.~.~.~.~.

Erelos was doing a little candlelit reading before bed when someone knocked on the door. He assumed it must be his father.

"Come in!"

Vardamir came in. He was a shadow on the edge of the pool of light cast by Erelos' candle, and he could not see his face. His voice, when he spoke, was studiously neutral.

"I've come to accept your invitation."

"My invitation?" Erelos gasped, not daring to believe it.

"To come to you for the New Year. If you still want me, that is?"

From what Erelos could see, Vardamir appeared to be studying his face questioningly.

"If I still want you! Oh, Vardamir! I'm so glad!"

"Excellent. I'll bid you good night, then."

"No, stay a moment - oh…"

Vardamir was already closing the door behind him.

"Good night!" Erelos called.

It had not occurred to him to ask the reason for his cousin's change of heart. That might have frightened him off again.

.~.~.~.~.

Tindómiel was finally enjoying the bath that she had been denied that morning. It was sheer heaven to sink into the hot water at last, and she felt her mind relaxing together with her body, as the tenseness of the day was replaced by a deep calm. As always, she lay back in the tub after washing herself to let her mind wander over the day's events. It seemed that the dominant emotion with which she had been left was regret for her unprovoked attack on poor little Aglarin at breakfast.

Her mind roving further, over the last few days, she recalled a conversation she had had with Ivanneth on the previous afternoon. What an unknown quantity was Ivanneth! It seemed incredible that this young woman, a stranger to everyone in the family but Vardamir and his children, would be the next queen of Númenor.

Ivanneth, Tindómiel and Vardilmë had been working together in the parlour for half an hour or so, Vardilmë and Tindómiel doing embroidery while Ivanneth sewed a garment for the baby. At first, Vardilmë did most of the talking. She kept repeating: "How funny it is to find everything just the same!"

At last Tindómiel asked her, "What did you expect? Nothing changes in this house."

"There have been - changes - in our house, Aunt Tindómiel."

"Of course you have my condolences."

"All these years, I couldn't stop wondering and worrying about you. You don't know how I've missed you - all of you!"

"Yes, yes, I'm sure."

Vardilmë seemed to find Tindómiel's attitude unsatisfactory. She fidgeted with her work for a few minutes and finally left on the pretext that she had just remembered she had seen some beautiful rose hips in the garden.

After her departure, Ivanneth said: "Dear Vardilmë! She really is one of the sweetest women I know. I think I am fortunate in the family I have married into."

"Most people would agree with you."

"Oh, but I wasn't talking about rank! Everyone is so kind and hospitable to me."

"Good."

"The only thing that puzzles me is, I can't understand why darling Vardilmë has never married."

"Explanations suggest themselves."

"Really? What are they?"

"Too timid. Too attached to her family."

"I suppose you are right. Perhaps my trouble is that I'm too happily married myself. I want to share my good fortune with the whole world."

"Possibly."

They were silent for a moment; then Ivanneth blushed a delicate pink.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "I forgot that you - that you also-"

"It doesn't matter. I have made my bed and now I must lie in it. Alone. I don't need you to remind me of the fact."

"You mean you regret it? I'm sorry."

"As I said, I accept my own responsibility for the situation. I was a fool."

Ivanneth's eyes were bright with curiosity.

"But how did it happen? Surely you had suitors?"

"Oh, yes! Dozens of them."

"Did you not like them?"

"I did like some of them, very much. But I was waiting to be _in love_. I had a very clear idea of what it felt like to be in love. It was something that swept you off your feet, something that consumed you. Didn't I tell you I was a fool?"

"But it is just like that for Amandil and I," Ivanneth protested softly.

"I never said it didn't happen. My own parents love each other frantically. I was probably influenced by them. But the point is this: I could have loved one of those men, if I had been prepared to work at it, to accept that there was no other man like my father. Instead I played around for two hundred years, as if I expected to be young forever. And then there were not so many men who wanted me. And then my mother began to lose her memory, and she and Father needed me. And suddenly, without my even noticing, the door was shut."

Tindómiel fell silent, feeling oddly breathless. Ivanneth laid a hand on her knee for a moment, but the older woman - annoyed with herself for revealing so much more than she had intended - shook it off impatiently.

"Well!" she said. "So you love Amandil, do you? That is fortunate for him. I remember I used to be afraid that all the men who professed to be dizzy with love for me were actually more enamoured with my father's crown."

The water was now too cold for comfort. It was time to get out of the bath.

.~.~.~.~.

A little later, Elros and Erilon lay rolled together in the stillness that comes after passion. Rather foolhardily, Elros had drawn back the curtains over the glass window, so that they could appreciate the full moon, whose light silvered everything in the room; but they were not cold under the blankets.

Suddenly Elros turned, nuzzled into Erilon's neck and said, "My darling, what would I do without you?"

Erilon could not speak. His joy swelled into a great silver light that enveloped him and wafted him away from the world of pain and loneliness and jealousy.

"I don't deserve your love," Elros continued in a murmur. "It's superhuman, the way you keep on loving me, after everything I have done to you."

"That is no way to speak. To love you is all my happiness."

"You know, when he was a child, Vardamir used to say he wished you were his father."

"Why did you have to say that, my love? You only torture both of us."

"He hated me even then. Well, in a few years he won't have to think about me any more."

"What do you mean?"

Elros sighed.

"I won't live after she's gone, you know."

"Really," Erilon said. All his joy had departed as swiftly as it had come, but Elros did not notice the slight edge of coldness to his voice.

"No. I may be denied sickness and old age, but I'll find a way. Maybe I have inherited other things from the elvish side of the family besides eternal youth. Nimloth didn't let that keep her from the Halls of Mandos."

"Oh, no - Elros…"

"If the death of grief fails me, there's always good old-fashioned suicide. A sword was good enough for Túrin Turambar."

"Don't!"

Elros turned and pressed his face against his lover's shoulder, as if he had been jolted back to reality.

"It isn't that I want to die, my sweet - I don't… But there is a limit to the number of years that one man can bear, however high his lineage may be. You understand?"

"Yes."

"You know," Elros said after a pause, "when my foster-father died, I thought the grief would kill me. It was agony. Galadriel rescued me. She came and _explained _to me why he felt he had to do it, and do it without telling me. I began to recover after that. But of course, I had youth on my side then - real youth… Do you remember how we talked about him when we first met?"

"Of course. You said you'd tell me the truth about the so-called Kinslayings."

"I suppose you think he taught me to say things like that?"

"I don't know."

"Liar. You wrong him. He was tortured by guilt always. I thought it all out for myself. After all, what is he supposed to have done that was so terrible? I'm sure the fall of Doriath was very regrettable, but I honestly don't see that his oath left him any choice. He had a better right to the Silmaril than Dior anyway. As for Elwing, she was clearly insane. She must have known perfectly well what would happen when she refused to give up the wretched jewel."

"But Elros, Elwing is your mother!"

"So what? I never pretended to be sane. At least I have enough intelligence to see that _Ada _was forced into attacking her father and her. And yet despite what they'd done to him, what their obstinacy had made him do, his kindness to me - his tenderness…" Elros sighed. "There are no words for it."

This time the silence that followed lasted so long that Erilon thought the other had fallen asleep, when he suddenly spoke again: "I still miss him, all the time. I miss Elrond too. He never meant as much to me as _Ada_, but we were always together from birth to the age of eighty-seven. That's a powerful bond."

"Did he love Maedhros as you did?"

"Not as I did. I think _Ada _was afraid he hated him or something, but that wasn't true at all. He did love him; he was just less earnest about it. He was always laughing at everything."

"He seemed very serious to me."

"He was a serious person who laughed a lot. Yes, I miss him sometimes. Good night."

"Good night, my love."

The night wore on, wrapping Elros close in an unconsciousness mercifully dreamless as death. But Erilon lay awake for hours, open-eyed in the moonlight, his mind full of strange and terrible thoughts.


	7. Chapter 7

_'ROXANE:_

_J'attendais cette plaisanterie._

(A ce moment un peu de brise fait tomber les feuilles.)

_CYRANO:_

_Les feuilles !_

_ROXANE _(levant la tête, et regardant au loin, dans les allées)_:  
Elles sont d'un blond vénitien.  
Regardez-les tomber._

_CYRANO:_

_Comme elles tombent bien !_

_Dans ce trajet si court de la branche à la terre,_

_Comme elles savent mettre une beauté dernière,_

_Et malgré leur terreur de pourrir sur le sol,_

_Veulent que leur chute ait la grâce d'un vol !'_

Edmond Rostand, _'Cyrano de Bergerac'_

At the seventh hour of the morning, someone knocked on Tindómiel's door. There was no answer. After a moment, Aglarin came in, carefully carrying a tray that seemed too large for his thin arms. It bore a single cup, full of hot tea.

After the fashion of her father, Tindómiel slept in a foetal position, the sheets pulled up to her chin. After putting the tray down on her bedside table, Aglarin watched her for a moment before he dared to murmur, "Aunt Tindómiel?"

Nothing happened, so he reached out and touched her shoulder. The response was immediate. Tindómiel opened her eyes and promptly sat up, staring at Aglarin.

"What are you doing here?" she whispered hoarsely.

He replied with the speech that he had already prepared:

"I thought you seemed unwell yesterday, Aunt Tindómiel, so I decided to bring you tea in bed, because my grandmother used to swear by it. I hope I haven't offended you."

Tindómiel blinked at him for a few moments, then dragged herself out of bed and walked unsteadily into a connecting room, rasping that he was to wait. She was gone for ten minutes, during which Aglarin sat quietly on the one chair in the room. When she came back, looking much more alert, the shift in which she slept had been replaced by, or possibly covered with, one of the white gowns that it was her habit to wear. Water glistened on her face.

She took a seat on the bed.

"Where did you get this from?" she asked, sipping at the tea.

"I asked Nimpu to make it."

"Nimpu?"

"She's one of the kitchen maids, Aunt Tindómiel."

"Ah!" Tindómiel exclaimed. "So that's where you disappeared to yesterday evening, is it?"

Aglarin looked down shyly at the beautifully patterned carpet.

"It was a very kind gesture," Tindómiel said in a suddenly much softer tone. "Very sweet. I'm sorry for being ungracious before. Only, if you'll allow me to give you some advice, never wake up either my father or I before the ninth hour if you don't want your head bitten off and chewed to pieces. I fear your grandmother must have been one of those tiresome people who bob out of bed at dawn, exclaiming over the beauty of the early morning."

"My grandmother was a very good and hard-working lady!" Aglarin protested, flushing.

"I didn't really mean it, my child. You must have been very fond of her. Did you two live alone?"

"Yes, all my life."

"What happened to your mother?"

"She died when I was born. I have a picture of her," the boy added shyly. "Would you like to see it?"

Tindómiel assenting, he pulled out from his shirt a locket that hung around his neck on a silver chain. Within, as was revealed when he opened it with careful fingers, was a miniature portrait. It showed a round little face very similar to Aglarin's, with the same unusual eyes, framed by identical sleek black hair.

"Surely she was a child when this was painted?" Tindómiel asked, after gazing at the portrait in silence for a moment.

"She was twelve. She was sixteen when she died."

"Dear Aulë!"

This shock sent Tindómiel reeling. There was something inexpressibly awful in the idea of that bright young life, so hopefully and sweetly looking out through the silver frame, being snuffed out a few short years later. As always with Tindómiel, the new emotion rapidly became anger, because anger was a sensation with which she had had long years of experience and could deal.

"Tell me, young one," she said, with a sharpness that made Aglarin look fearful, "did Atanalcar give your grandmother money to pay for bringing you up?"

"Yes - I think so."

"What do you mean, you think? You did know who your father was?"

Aglarin hung his head as if she had accused him of doing something wrong.

"No, Aunt Tindómiel."

"So he paid her to keep silent. I suppose he was afraid of us finding out. Well, that shows he had some sense of shame left, at least."

Aglarin was silent.

"But what happened when she died? Did he just turn up and claim you?"

"Yes."

"That must have been a shock."

"Yes."

"Poor child! Are you happy in the Hyarnustar? Is he kind to you?"

"Yes, he is kind, but…"

"But what?"

"But I know he doesn't want me there," Aglarin said, lifting his head and looking straight into Tindómiel's eyes with his multicoloured ones. "I don't want to be there either. I miss Grandmother."

Moving to take a sip of tea, Tindómiel realised it was all gone, just as her sudden rage had evaporated.

"Well, that was delicious," she said brightly, springing to her feet with the agility of a young doe startled by the hunter's horn. "And now I must find something to do until everyone else wakes up. I don't think I've got up so early since I was a girl. I know - would you like to take a walk in the garden with me?"

The garden looked exquisitely lovely in the early morning sunshine, although, to Tindómiel's eyes, there was something disturbingly raw in the quality of the light. She gave Aglarin a tour, describing the games that she and Vardamir had played there as children.

"We used to ride our ponies on the lawn. We weren't supposed to, because they ate the shrubs, and the gardeners were furious, but Father and Mother were ridiculously indulgent and would have let us get away with murder, or at least manslaughter. Especially Father."

"What colour was your pony?"

"Black. Both of them were. Mine was called Periwinkle. I loved her so much I wanted to bring her into the house. Father actually had her brought into the breakfast-room as a surprise on my ninth birthday."

"That's amazing!"

"Have you seen Mother's rose?"

In his heart, Aglarin suspected he had, but he shook his head to oblige her.

It was a large rosebush, still flaunting a number of small pale pink flowers, although they looked rather moth-eaten and dejected.

"Mother planted it with her own hands," Tindómiel informed Aglarin. "When she was still interested in gardening. But the amazing thing about it is that it has never failed to flower into December. Once it went on until February. But it's always in bloom at this time of year. Imagine that - roses in November…" she murmured, running a hand caressingly over the fading blossoms.

Standing by the ornamental lake, she told Aglarin of the hours that she had once spent feeding bread to the enormous golden carp that inhabited it.

"They're still there - or their descendants. Look, there goes one!"

Aglarin looked at her earnestly.

"Do you think, if Nimpu would give me some bread, I could feed them too?"

"Absolutely. We'll do it together. This afternoon. Shake on it?"

They shook hands. Tindómiel, who had had the foresight to put on a woollen cape over her dress before leaving the house, noticed that the boy's fingers were icy to the touch.

"Aglarin! You're freezing! Here, you must take my cape."

He did not resist as she carefully arranged it on his thin shoulders. When she had finished, just before she let him go, something happened to her. It was as if her senses expanded, allowing her to see the world with the intensity of a young child. On the other side of the lake, a wind blew some of the last few remaining leaves of a horse chestnut tree on to the dark, still water, where they floated, golden sequins on black velvet. In the tree's branches, a robin sang his swelling song; behind its almost bare crown, a gigantic cloud mass moved slowly across the bright sky. And in the liquid notes of the song - in the arrangement of the leaves on the water - there was a message. It might as well have been written on the cloud in letters of gold: _This is a way out._


	8. Chapter 8

The next day was that of the Eruhantalë itself. Tindómiel was not the only one dressed in white at breakfast; it was customary to forsake coloured garments at the three great festivals. With an old maid's maliciousness, she was gratified to observe that white was not Ivanneth's colour. It accentuated her fair healthy plumpness, making her look almost bloated. However, the young woman herself, apparently completely unaware of this disadvantage, was innocently looking forward to the ceremony, which she had never seen before. Amandil, too, gazed at her as fondly as ever. She would have been beautiful to him in a sack.

When everyone had finished eating, Elros rose to his feet, cast a dignified eye around the room, and marched out. The others followed in approximate order of importance: Vardamir first, followed by Amandil and Ivanneth; then Tindómiel, Manwendil and Atanalcar, with Hiril, Íriel and Aglarin; Vardilmë; and finally Erilon and Erelos. The house and garden staff were waiting in the vestibule to fall in behind the family as they left the house and set off on the road to Armenelos.

Tindómiel found Aglarin walking beside her. Since Íriel was being kept under strict control by her mother, it seemed natural to both, after the events of the previous morning, that he should seek companionship from his aunt.

The outer streets of Armenelos, including that on which stood Manwendil's house, were utterly deserted and silent. The entire population were waiting for their king in the great central square. There were also, of course, many visitors from the nearby countryside or more distant regions who had come to take part in the great ceremony. Some had stinted their food and their children's to pay for their stay in an Armenelos inn, or sold precious possessions; others had spent the chill November night in the open. Many had walked fifty miles to hear the words of thanksgiving spoken on the Meneltarma.

Halmiel was there too. Though the king must climb the mountain on foot, the days were long gone when she could walk proudly by his side. Instead she sat on a litter, with four men ready to bear her. They were about to lift the burden on to their shoulders when Elros stopped them with a gesture. Stepping forward, he knelt and pressed his lips to her wrinkled hand.

There was a murmur of approbation from the great crowd as it swung towards the mountain, Halmiel's litter being carried alongside her husband. The multitude frightened Aglarin. Not only were there more people than he had ever seen in his life before, they were all disturbingly similar in their white garments. Moreover, although they were not forbidden to speak until the procession reached the foothills of the Meneltarma, very few people were talking. Almost the only sound poor Aglarin heard was the tramping of thousands of feet.

He took Tindómiel's hand.

"So many people!" he whispered. "Do you think they all know who I am?"

"It doesn't matter what they know, nephew. You have nothing to be ashamed of."

She squeezed his fingers. Poor child! Perhaps this was the first time it had really come home to him that he was a member of the royal family!

"Now, remember, you must not speak after we have reached the mountain."

Aglarin considered this for a moment. "Please, when must I go silent, exactly?"

His aunt pointed to a distant stand of leafless willows.

"You see those trees? They mark the course of a stream that runs around the mountain. The sacred area begins at the bridge over that."

The boy nodded, but did not speak again.

.~.~.~.~.

"Allfather," Elros said, "unto thee we give thanks for the blessings with which thou hast favoured us thy children in the year that is passing. We were unworthy of thy care, yet thou broughtest our plans and our crops to fruition, thou protectedst our beasts and quickenedst the wombs of our womenfolk…"

He was not shouting, but in the profound silence his clear strong voice reached the ears of each of the multitude who were gathered together on the flat summit of the Meneltarma, having traversed the spiral road cut into its sides. Of course Tindómiel had no need to listen; she knew Elros' speech by heart. Normally, she would have smiled cynically through it, concealing her impatience for the ceremony to be over. Over the last thirty years she had come to hate the Eruhantalë, not merely because of the dreaded family reunion, but because it was to her a festival of endings and death and barrenness.

This year, however, things had changed. Tindómiel had a secret plan. Turning and growing within her, almost ready for a stupendous birth, it left her no time for self-pity.

"…for thou hast preserved the lives of our mariners on the sea, and thou hast preserved thy servant, that I may serve thy people. May we be inspired with true gratitude for thy bounty."

Elros bowed his head. His speech was ended. Now they would remain on the summit for a few minutes, while everyone meditated in silence, or pretended to, on what they themselves had to be thankful for. Some of the more enthusiastic worshippers, of whom Erelos was one, knelt down on the ground and held up their hands to the heaven in whose height wheeled the three eagles called the Witnesses of Manwë, allegedly sent by him to keep watch upon the holy mountain.

Erelos suspected that he looked ridiculous, but this did not matter. He was overcome by a surge of profound gratitude for the marvellous gift that had been given him when Vardamir agreed to spend the New Year with him. Life was good!

Aglarin was watching the scene with fascination. Tindómiel glanced at him and smiled. Perhaps, for the first time in many years, she had something to give thanks for after all.

And Erilon, sweet unimaginative Erilon - Erilon turned his eyes to the ground, and thanked Eru, most sincerely, for the excellent harvest on his farm.

.~.~.~.~.

After the royal party's return to the villa (minus Halmiel), Vardamir went out into the garden. Erelos waited for a few minutes before following him. He found his former pupil sitting on a stone bench at the edge of the lawn on which he had once so daringly ridden a jet-black pony while his parents looked on fondly. His head was bowed, but he looked up at Erelos' approach. His face was unusually grim, even for him.

"Mind if I sit here?" Erelos asked, doing so anyway.

Vardamir smiled faintly.

"You don't leave me much choice! But you are welcome, if you have nothing better to do."

"I never have anything better to do than seek your company."

"Oh Erelos, why do you want me for a friend?" Vardamir let out a despairing sigh. "You're too good for me."

"That's rot, and you know it. Why, if I had your principles, your industry, your clarity of mind, I'd count myself a happy man!"

Vardamir made no reply to this. After a moment, he said sharply:

"I saw you making a fool of yourself up there!"

"I was giving thanks for your accepting my invitation."

"Ah well, it's rather touching that you take the thing so seriously."

"Don't you?"

"It's a travesty. Every part of it is a travesty. I could have laughed when we were marching along in that ridiculous procession."

"Why?"

"Being second in line. Having everyone's eye on me as Heir to the Throne - just as if I could bear to speak with any member of the reverend dynasty to which I am privileged to belong. Putting on a show of being a happy family for the peasants!"

Erelos could think of nothing to say to this.

"Anyway, I will never be king," Vardamir continued. "I've made up my mind to that. I could never take the kingship after he's polluted it. Ha! Heir to the throne - a throne contaminated by his filthy buttocks? No, thank you. When he dies - if he ever does -, I shall simply abdicate in Amandil's favour. I wish him joy of it!"

"Does he know?"

"No, I haven't told anyone. Except you, evidently."

"When did you make up your mind?"

"Guess."

Erelos reached out and gripped the other's hand. Vardamir tolerated his grasp for a moment, then abruptly got up and walked away. Halfway across the lawn, he stopped and awkwardly raised his hand, in farewell.

Erelos went inside, met Erilon on the stairs and, drawing him into the privacy of his own bedroom, imparted to him what Vardamir had told him. He did this without any idea of disloyalty or indiscretion, but because he was simply so full of the news that he could not keep it from the man whom he loved and admired better than anyone else in the world.

Erilon listened with more than his usual gravity; they were leaving in two days, and he was always especially melancholy towards the end of a visit to Elros. When he had heard everything Vardamir had to say, he commented,

"So Vardamir expects Elros to live forever? He's wrong. I have it on reliable authority that Amandil's rule will soon commence."

"What do you mean?"

"Elros told me that he doesn't intend to survive Halmiel long. If all else fails, he will kill himself. And if he does that," Erilon added, with a swell of emotion, "I shall die too!"

"Oh, Father - don't say that…"

"I shall be buried with Aiwerin under the old forked willow," Erilon continued with an apparently detached lyricism, almost chanting. "And Nimfileg will come down for the funeral, and be embarrassed and long to be far away, as she did after Aiwerin died. But you, my son, you will grieve for me, will you not?"

Erelos put an arm around his father's waist.

"Of course," he said.

.~.~.~.~.

Tindómiel emerged from the library. Meeting her youngest brother in the passage, she laid a hand, trembling with excitement or nervousness or both, on his arm.

"I was going to look for you, Atanalcar." Her voice was as tense as her touch. "I want to talk to you about something. Would you come in here for a few minutes?"

"I am leaving tomorrow, sister. I must supervise my packing."

"But I will only keep you for a very few minutes. Come on…"

She herded him into the library. Having got him in there, she dashed off again, announcing mysteriously that there were two others she wanted to attend their conference. The two in question were Erilon and Erelos, who were much astonished when Tindómiel dashed into Erelos' room, breathlessly crying,

"Here you are! Would you mind coming into the library with me? I need you help with a matter of business."

And, taking one of their hands in each of hers, she all but dragged them along with her; not that they were unwilling to come. Erilon and Tindómiel had always liked each other, though it was a liking mingled with perplexity and irritation on both sides, owing to the gulf between their temperaments. Tindómiel was both attracted to and annoyed by Erilon's sweetness of temper. On his side, he recognised her as the most noble of Elros' children. At the same time, he was alarmed by her rapid movements of body and mind, in the way that a placid soul might be unnerved by the unpredictable scuttlings of a spider.

However, these misgivings were cancelled out by the chief bond that united the two: the tacit understanding between them that there was no sacrifice that either of them would not make, no crime that they would not commit, for Elros.

In the library, having forced her three prisoners to sit down, Tindómiel produced a sheet of paper from her sleeve and handed it to Atanalcar.

"Read that."

He read:

_I, Atanalcar, son of Elros Tar-Minyatur, do hereby make over the guardianship of my natural son Aglarin to my sister Tindómiel, daughter of Elros Tar-Minyatur. I utterly revoke all rights over the education and upbringing of the said Aglarin, and disclaim all responsibility for his accommodation, clothing and nourishment._

_Signed:_

_In the presence of us: _

The second half of the sheet contained a statement, with a space for Tindómiel's name, declaring that she accepted all that Atanalcar was to cast off.

Atanalcar looked up at her.

"What _is _this?"

"You don't want him," she said softly, her hazel eyes boring into his. "He's nothing but a burden to you. Anyone can see that. If you keep him with you out of spite, he will grow up to hate you for your indifference. But I - I can love him!"

"So I'm expected to sign away my only child, am I? You've known him only a few days!"

"Only imagine what it would be to be free of him. He will no longer inhibit the lifestyle you have chosen. You will no longer have to endure the reproach of his eyes."

"All right," Atanalcar said, "I accept."

Hastily, in case he should change his mind, Tindómiel snatched the piece of paper from Erelos, who had picked it up and was reading it, and put it on the table by the window, where she had already set out an inkwell and a quill pen. The brother and sister signed it.

"Now," she said brightly, turning to the other two, "the witnesses must subscribe their names. I don't want this noble lord going back on his promise!"

Erilon picked up the pen and gazed thoughtfully at the document, which he had already read over his son's shoulder.

"What does the child want?" he asked.

Tindómiel shrugged her shoulders.

"Of course, he wants to stay here with me. He hates that miserable vineyard."

"But have you asked him?"

"There's no need!"

She was flustered now; her prize was almost within her grasp, but not quite. It would be unbearable if it should slip away at this stage.

"I would not feel comfortable in my own mind," Erilon said slowly, glancing for support at Erelos, who nodded, "if I signed this document without knowing that it was not contrary to the will of the person chiefly concerned."

"All right, I'll go and find him!"

But before Tindómiel could leave, there was a rustling behind the most distant bookcase and Aglarin came out, blushing, covered with dust. He was followed by Íriel.

"Please," he muttered, "I'm here."

"How?" Tindómiel cried.

Aglarin seemed to be beyond speech, so Íriel answered for him.

"We were playing houses here when you came in, Aunt Tindómiel. We thought it would be fun to stay and listen."

Aglarin glanced balefully at his cousin. It was clear who was responsible for this brilliant plan.

"Do you understand what is going on?" Erilon said to the boy in his gentlest voice.

Aglarin nodded.

"Do you want to live with your father or with Tindómiel? This must be your final decision."

Aglarin, evidently agonised, looked at his father as if for direction, but Atanalcar merely shrugged and raised his eyebrows, seeming to say, "It is nothing to me what you choose; you are nothing to me."

"This is a pointless waste of time," Tindómiel said, her words sharp with nervousness. "You want to stay here with me, don't you, Aglarin?"

Erelos protested: "Tindómiel, please!"

"Would you like to come into another room and tell me alone?" Erilon asked Aglarin.

"No," he said clearly, "I want to live with Aunt Tindómiel."

She sagged with relief.

Erilon took up the pen again and signed his name in the flawlessly elegant handwriting that Galathil had taught him in Ossiriand, on the other side of an impassable ocean of water and time: _Erilon son of Meldir_. Erelos followed suit. His hand, although visibly similar, was both messier and stronger.

"Oh, I'm so glad!" Íriel shrieked, hugging Aglarin, who appeared stunned. "Now we can see each other all the time!"

Her presence prevented any intimate conversation between Tindómiel and Aglarin. Indeed, they barely had time to exchange looks before she dragged him off to the garden to play at war.

The rest of the little party dispersed quickly. When Atanalcar, Erilon and Erelos had gone, Tindómiel went to find Elros. He was in his bedroom, sitting at the desk there and gazing into the view of the garden that his window disclosed to him.

Tindómiel came up behind her father and laid the sheet of paper on the desk. While he read it, she put her hands on his head and played with his dark curls.

"What's this?" he said without looking up, his tone as much amused as amazed. "A _fait accompli_?"

"You don't disapprove, do you?"

"I think you might have asked my consent first."

She wrenched his head around, so that his eyes met hers.

"Father, this child won't disrupt our lives. He's like Erilon - pure sweetness. Father, he can bring life back to this house!"

Elros laughed.

"Far be it from me to go against your wishes, dear girl! I only hope you don't tire of the idea too soon."

"Never!" Tindómiel kissed him on the lips. "Oh, darling, thank you, thank you!"

**.~.~.~.~.**

**Author's Note:**

The eagles known as the Witnesses of Manwë feature in 'Unfinished Tales'.


	9. Chapter 9

'Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.'

Luke 7:47

Vardamir, Manwendil and Atanalcar all left a day later. Íriel parted from Aglarin with extravagant vows of eternal siblinghood, while Hiril transfixed Erelos with a look of overflowing soulfulness, which made him uncomfortable for the rest of the day.

He and Erilon began their homeward journey on the next day; just as Erilon was always the first to arrive for the annual reunion, he was also the last to leave. Elros kissed him goodbye under the horse chestnut. The taste of his mouth signified that he was already thinking about other things.

Erelos understood his father's melancholy on setting out and knew that it would lift a little with every mile that brought them closer to their home. For himself, he was filled with a sense of wellbeing. The weather was good; he was going to Eril; he would not have to see Elros or Hiril for another year; Vardamir was coming to the Andustar for the New Year.

It was that evening. Aglarin had once more gone to visit Nimpu in the kitchen, leaving Tindómiel and Elros alone. They sat, as they had sat on another night seven years ago, on either side of the fireplace in the library.

"Isn't this cosy?" Elros said. "Just the two of us again!"

Tindómiel returned his smile.

"Not for long though," she pointed out, alluding to the fact that he would have to resume his kingly duties on the morrow.

"I know, it's our last evening of freedom; don't remind me! Mind you, I would feel much happier about that if you came back to Armenelos with me."

"I'll come, I'll come. I just want to have a few days of peace and quiet with Aglarin first. I don't really know him yet."

"My dear, Aglarin seems to be all you think of at the moment. Anyone would imagine you were in love!"

Tindómiel smiled again. Her teeth glinted pearly in the firelight; she looked, suddenly, very young.

"Do you know," she said, "I think I may be?"

Elros jumped up.

"Let's go for a walk in the garden!"

"You're mad! We'd freeze!"

"Don't be a spoilsport, daughter dear. We can put our cloaks on. I want to see the stars."

So they bundled themselves up and went out. The sky was beautifully clear, but they were too early: the only star to be seen, blazing fiercely in the west, was that one in which both father and daughter had reason to feel a special interest.

They stood and looked at it for a few minutes.

"Do you think he can see us?"

"I hope not. I should think the sight would move him to despair."

By mutual, silent consent, they set off down a shadowy path.

"But honestly," Elros said, reverting to their original topic of conversation, "isn't it a relief to have got rid of them all? Especially Vardamir. I don't wish to seem callous, but his grim face is not a pleasant object to have around the house."

Tindómiel halted and turned to her father.

"Elros Tar-Minyatur, you are irremediably wicked. You know that, don't you?"

"Very well. Is that why Vardamir hates me?"

"I think it's because you fondled him too much when he was a child."

"What?"

"Oh, I know you meant it as a sign of affection, but if you'd really loved him you would have seen how much he hated it."

"Didn't I really love him?"

"No. You never loved any of us."

They walked on in silence. Elros was brooding over his daughter's last utterance, which, in its stark veracity, touched him far more painfully than her half-shocked, half-amused statement that he was "irremediably wicked".

"Was I a terrible father?" he said as they came in sight of the ornamental lake, whose still water was lit by the rising moon. "I'm sorry."

"You did your best. Whatever you felt or did not feel for us, you couldn't help it."

"I don't think I can sleep tonight. I believe I'll walk to the city and back."

She read his mind immediately.

"You can't throw pebbles at her window now, Father. Her nurses guard her sleep as if she were a baby."

"I know," he said good-naturedly. "But there is no law in the land that prevents me from walking past - and dreaming… Is there?"

When he had gone, Tindómiel made her way to the old stone seat and sat down on it, reflecting on their conversation. As Elros had understood, she had not truly meant her hard words to him.

_But ought I to have meant it? _she wondered now. _Is it true?_

Her heart answered _No_, without hesitation; her mind was slow to justify this position, but gradually, as more stars appeared in the velvet sky, some thoughts began to shape themselves. Yes, Elros had done terrible wrongs. Erilon was only one of the many men and women whose lives he had marred with his lust (though never deliberately). His crimes against Vardamir were scarlet and beyond forgiveness.

Yet these crimes would die with their victim. Erilon, too, would carry his patient suffering to the grave with him. What the people would remember of Elros - what would be written in the history books - would be that he was handsome and gay and cared for his subjects' rights and gave fortunes in gold to beggars in the street. Perhaps it would be recalled also that the first ruler of Númenor had loved his wife more than life, more than kingdom.

And this _would not be a lie_. That was the beauty of it. For if the good qualities of any man were more important than the bad, as Tindómiel firmly believed, of whom could this be more true than of Elros? Elros, whose virtues were not only outstanding, but precisely those that were required for his task in life. Who but he could have made of the dispirited remnants of three jealous races a nation?

So the Elros who would live on popular memory, the ideal image, would be a true Elros; more true, perhaps, than the flawed flesh-and-blood man from whom he sprang, in as much as he should be what the original should have been.

One more thought occurred to Tindómiel before the cold drove her to retreat indoors. All of Elros' faults, and all of his virtues, sprang from love. He was transcendently born to love and to be loved. How could he help his nature? More to the point, would it have been better for him to have been a cold and passionless man, though he cause ten thousand times less grief? 

As Tindómiel got up, stiffly, she saw the garden peopled with ghosts for a moment. Over the lawn rode a black-haired boy and a wild girl, urging on their midnight ponies. A man and a woman watched from the bench. He was young, vigorous and very handsome, with luscious jetty curls and deep grey eyes. Small, but vigorous also, she rested her brown head against his shoulder, looking up into the face whose shape preserved a suggestion of boyish roundness. Her skin had the ripe bloom of a peach.

These spectres were familiar to Tindómiel, but now, for the first time, she looked on them without pain. Today she felt that she understood the point of the Eruhantalë at last. They gathered on the Meneltarma to celebrate the death of nature, because it was necessary for its resurrection. Without winter there would be no spring. Halmiel must die, so that the child in Ivanneth's belly might live. Beauty and horror, birth and death, were inextricable, each dependent on the other.

_I must get Aglarin a pony, _she thought. _A black one…_

**The End**


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